Israel carried out a strike in the heart of Beirut on Wednesday for a second time since Lebanon was dragged into the Middle East war, as the death toll in the country climbed past 630.
In New York, around 30 countries backing the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon voiced concern over the fighting in the country, which became a front in the wider conflict last week when Hezbollah attacked Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Israel, which had kept up strikes in Lebanon even before the war despite a 2024 ceasefire with Iran-backed Hezbollah, has since launched air raids across the country and sent ground troops into border areas an offensive that has killed 634 people, including 91 children, according to authorities.
Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon said Wednesday that Israeli forces would continue to operate in Lebanon “as long there will be a threat against us”.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said “the enemy targeted an apartment in the Aisha Bakkar area” in central Beirut, a densely populated neighbourhood close to one of the city’s biggest shopping malls.
AFPTV’s live broadcast captured the sound of an air strike followed by a fireball erupting in an apartment in a multi-storey residential building.
An AFP correspondent saw destroyed walls on the building’s seventh and eighth floors, with damaged cars nearby and security forces present at the scene.
When the strike hit, “I ran from room to room, pulled my wife and daughter out of the rooms and hid them behind a wall, then the second strike hit”, said Fawzi Asmar, owner of a bakery on the same street.
Samer Knio, a civil defence paramedic, said glass and debris fell on his team as they were evacuating casualties “but God protected us”.
– ‘Who do I blame?’ –
Lebanese authorities said Wednesday that about 816,000 people had been registered as displaced, with around 126,000 staying in collective shelters.
Some residents fear being caught in Israeli air raids targeting people sheltering nearby.
“We don’t know who they’re targeting. Maybe someone related to something, maybe not,” Amal Hisham, 46, said.
“Who do I blame? Who do I not blame?”
The health ministry announced an initial toll of four people wounded in the apartment strike the second in central Beirut after Israel a seafront hotel days ago, saying it was targeting Iranian foreign operations officers.
Iran later said the raid killed four of its diplomats.
Senior UN officials and member states called on Wednesday for an end to fighting in Lebanon at a Security Council meeting in New York.
Jerome Bonnafont, the French ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters before the meeting that “we troop-contributing countries to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, joined by several other member states, express our deep alarm at the escalation of hostilities in Lebanon”.
– Red Cross paramedic –
Also on Wednesday, the Israeli army resumed strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah holds sway, after issuing a new evacuation warning.
AFPTV live footage showed smoke rising from the area following strikes.
Israeli air raids also continued in southern and eastern Lebanon, with the NNA reporting strikes in several areas.
The health ministry eight people killed in a strike in the southeastern Bint Jbeil district, with NNA reporting the toll included five members of one family.
The ministry said seven people were also killed in a strike on the east Lebanon town of Tamnin al-Tahta, while “successive raids” overnight on the southern town of Qana in the Tyre district killed five people.
In Hennawiyeh, also in the Tyre area, the ministry said an overnight Israeli strike wounded two people who were then killed in a subsequent attack along with a rescue worker who attended the scene.
It also announced the death of a Red Cross paramedic from wounds sustained when “the Israeli enemy targeted the ambulance he was travelling in… on a rescue mission” two days earlier in the same district.
An AFP correspondent saw mourners, including some in Red Cross uniform, taking part in the paramedic’s funeral procession on Wednesday in Tyre city.
Authorities said 15 healthcare workers are among those killed in Israeli strikes since March 2.
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