Israeli strike on residential building in heart of Beirut

Photo: Ibrahim Amro Agence France-Presse Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike targeting the southern suburbs of Beirut, November 23, 2024. At least three new overnight strikes targeted the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut late Friday, November 22 and early Saturday, Agence France-Presse and state media images showed.

Agence France-Presse in Beirut

Published yesterday at 11:25 p.m.

• Middle East

An Israeli airstrike with “five missiles” targeted an eight-story residential building in the heart of Beirut, completely destroying it, state media reported Saturday, as the open war between Israel and Hezbollah entered its third month.

“The capital Beirut woke up to a horrific massacre as Israeli aircraft completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Maamoun Street in the Basta neighborhood,” the national news agency Ani reported.

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Ani added that rescuers were working to clear the rubble, reporting a “large number of dead and wounded.”

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AFP journalists across Beirut and its environs reported at least three loud explosions, followed by a pungent odor, after a day intense bombings targeting the southern suburbs of Beirut, a bastion of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, in open war against Israel.

The strike damaged several nearby buildings and ambulances rushed to the site of the targeted building, which turned into a pile of rubble, in this popular and densely populated district of Basta, according to images from AFPTV.

The center of the Lebanese capital has been targeted several times in recent months.

Last Sunday, Hezbollah's media manager and four other members of his media team were killed in an Israeli strike targeting Ras el-Nabaa, a district near Basta, which left seven dead, according to the Health Ministry.

A second Israeli bombardment a few hours later on the commercial district of Mar Elias left three dead and 29 wounded, according to this source.

In mid-October, more than twenty people were killed when an Israeli strike on Basta and the neighboring district of Noueiri left 22 dead.

Israel launched a massive bombing campaign and ground offensive in Lebanon in late September against the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, which it says it wants to neutralize in order to bring home its residents in the north of the country displaced by more than a year of exchanges of fire.

Since the start of the violence in October 2023, more than 3,640 people have been killed, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, most of them since the escalation in late September.