Israeli airstrikes struck two buildings in central Beirut on Thursday, widening the offensive against Iran-backed Hezbollah and pulling Lebanon deeper into the Middle East war, a day after Hezbollah launched its largest rocket salvo of the conflict.
One strike hit a building in the Bachoura neighbourhood, around one kilometre from the Lebanese government’s Grand Serail headquarters, after the Israeli military issued advance warnings to residents. A second strike followed in the nearby district of Zuqaq al-Blat, hitting a building even closer to the Serail.
A pre-dawn strike on Thursday in another part of Beirut killed 12 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, striking a seafront area where dozens of displaced families had set up tents and were sleeping in the street.
Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir said the operation in Lebanon would be prolonged. “This operation will not be short. We will bring additional troops and capabilities to the north,” he said, adding that the military would continue pressing forward.
Israel launched its offensive against Hezbollah last week after the group opened fire on Israel on 2 March, saying it was acting in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader. Hezbollah has fired rockets and drones at Israel every day since, including a barrage on Wednesday of 200 rockets and 20 drones fired simultaneously with an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel. Zamir said only two of the hundreds of projectiles fired on Wednesday night had struck Israeli territory.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said the military had orders to expand the campaign, warning Lebanese President Joseph Aoun that if the Lebanese government could not prevent Hezbollah from attacking Israel, “we will take the territory and do it ourselves.”
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi summoned the Iranian chargé d’affaires over the joint Hezbollah-Iran attack, saying it violated a cabinet decree issued last week outlawing military activities by Hezbollah, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The Lebanese health ministry said the death toll from Israeli attacks had risen to 687, including 98 children, 62 women and 18 medics. The toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Imran Riza, the UN resident coordinator in Lebanon, said the civilian cost was “too high” and called on member states to press all parties to respect international humanitarian law. “The expectation as we go along is that we will have more and more displacement. We don’t see any signs right now of things calming down,” he said.
Israel has also ordered mass evacuations across southern Lebanon and the east, with evacuation orders now covering around a tenth of the country. More than 800,000 people have fled their homes.
(Reuters)
