BEIRUT: Lebanon said four people were killed and 23 wounded in an Israeli strike on central Beirut on Saturday, as rescue operations continued hours after a residential building was razed.
Rescuers were “removing rubble in Al-Mamoun Street in the Basta (neighbourhood), where Israeli enemy aircraft targeted an eight-story building at dawn, completely destroying it, and leaving a large number of people dead and wounded,” Lebanon National News Agency reported.
The NNA reported that Israeli jets launched six missiles at the building in the working-class Basta neighbourhood causing “widespread destruction in buildings” nearby.
On Saturday morning, AFP reported an excavator removing the rubble of the eight-storey building hit at around 04:00 AM (0200 GMT), with a fire truck and civil defence rescuers nearby while people gathered around the site.
“The Israeli enemy attack on Basta al-Fawqa in Beirut killed four people and wounded 23 others,” the ministry said in a statement.
There was no evacuation warning from the Israeli military for the Basta area, according to local and western media.
AFP journalists heard at least three large explosions in the capital at dawn.
Saturday’s strikes were the second time the Basta district had been targeted since war broke out, with deadly twin strikes early in October targeting the area and the Nweiri neighbourhood.
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Hours later the NNA reported another Israeli strike, this time on the Hadath area of Beirut’s southern suburbs, Hezbollah’s main bastion.
Following a year of cross-border exchanges, Israel dramatically escalated its air campaign in Lebanon in September and later sending ground troops into southern Lebanon to fight the militant group.
The strikes came after a day of bombardment in the capital’s southern suburbs, including air strikes that demolished an 11-storey building.
On Monday, Lebanon’s health ministry said five people were killed and 31 wounded in an Israeli strike on central Beirut’s Zuqaq al-Blat district.
The day before, Israeli strikes targeted two Beirut districts, killing three people in the central Mar Elias neighbourhood, while another raid killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif and others in Ras al-Nabaa, authorities added.
Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 3,645 people had been killed since October 2023, after Hezbollah initiated the clashes with Israel in solidarity with ally Hamas over the Gaza war. Most of the deaths have been since September this year. -AFP
