Israel launches massive airstrike on Beirut in apparent bid to kill Hezbollah leader | Lebanon

Israel has launched its heaviest airstrike on Beirut in nearly a year of conflict with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, leveling a number of buildings in a southern suburb in what Israeli media reported as an attempt to kill Hezbollah’s leader and key ally Iran, Hassan Nasrallah, to kill. .

Six loud explosions were heard in the Lebanese capital on Friday afternoon, and several huge plumes of smoke were visible as far away as Batroun, a city an hour’s drive away.

Lebanon’s health ministry said two people had been killed and 76 injured, describing this as a preliminary figure, while some early estimates put the number of deaths as high as 300. More victims are expected as rescuers clear the rubble.

Video footage of the attacks suggested they were carried out with ground-penetrating munitions known as bunker busters. In some images, a vertical jet of flame was visible as a bomb appeared to explode underground.

Israeli media reported that Nasrallah had been targeted and that the army was checking to see if he had been hit. Other media outlets quoted Hezbollah sources as saying he was “alive and well.” Late on Friday, the militant group’s media office said “no statement was true” about the Israeli attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs, without specifying which statements it was referring to.

The attacks came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly in a belligerent speech marked by the walkout of dozens of diplomats that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah would continue despite international efforts to broker a ceasefire firing of three weeks.

Attacking Nasrallah – even if he suffered no harm – would mark a staggering escalation on the Israeli side. He represents Iran’s most important regional asset and has long been seen as the linchpin in the so-called axis of resistance. The presence of Hezbollah’s large missile arsenal on Israel’s northern border has long acted as a deterrent to an Israeli attack on Iran and its nuclear program.

The Iranian embassy in Beirut said on

The British Embassy, ​​meanwhile, reiterated its warning to British citizens, writing: “British nationals in Lebanon must leave now. You must take the next available flight.’

As night fell in Jerusalem, Netanyahu’s office said he had personally approved the strike, distributing a photo of Netanyahu with his military secretary and chief of staff on the phone at his New York hotel.

His office also announced that he had cut short his visit to the US and would immediately return to Israel.

Israeli media underlined the importance of the attack, reporting that the operation was watched during its development by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the Israeli Air Force command center in Tel Aviv, together with Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and other top commanders.

Although some Israeli media suggested that the US had been notified minutes before the attack, this was emphatically denied by US President Joe Biden, who told reporters that the US had “no knowledge of or participation” in the attack.

The explosions were so powerful they rattled windows and shook houses in settlements 30 kilometers north of Beirut.

Witnesses from the area, quoted by the Lebanese daily L’Orient-Le Jour, described significant fissures opening up in the ground. Ambulances were seen driving to the scene of the explosions with sirens blaring.

IDF spokesman R Adm Daniel Hagari said in a video statement that Hezbollah’s headquarters were “deliberately built under residential buildings” in Beirut’s southern Dahieh area “as part of Hezbollah’s strategy to use the Lebanese people as human shields ”.

He said: “Israel is doing what any sovereign state in the world would do if they had a terrorist organization seeking their destruction on their border, and taking the necessary action to protect our people so that Israeli families can live safely and securely in their homes. safe.”

Not long before the attack, thousands of people had gathered in Dahieh for the funeral of three Hezbollah members, including a senior commander, who had been killed in previous attacks.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who is also in New York, was monitoring developments as information came in, a statement from his office said.

The statement said Mikati was in contact with Lebanese Forces commander Joseph Aoun and ordered “the full mobilization” of emergency resources after reports of a large number of casualties.

“This new aggression shows that the Israeli enemy is mocking all international calls in favor of a ceasefire from the international community,” Mikati said.

Late Friday evening, Hezbollah launched new rocket salvos against the northern Israeli cities of Safed, Karmiel and Sa’ar, which they said were carried out “in response to Israeli attacks on towns, villages and civilians.”

Earlier in the day, Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon killed about 25 people, bringing the death toll this week to more than 720, health authorities said.

The Israeli army said it carried out dozens of attacks in the south over the course of two hours on Friday, including in the cities of Sidon and Nabatieh. It said it targeted Hezbollah’s rocket launchers and infrastructure. According to the report, Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets at the northern Israeli city of Tiberias.

A year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah escalated sharply this week, raising fears of an even more destructive conflict. According to the UN, more than 90,000 people in Lebanon were identified as newly displaced this week, adding to the more than 111,000 people already displaced by the conflict.

According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, 30,000 people have crossed from Lebanon into Syria in recent days, 80% of them Syrians. More than 1 million Syrians fled to Lebanon during the Syrian civil war that broke out in 2011.

Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, the UNHCR representative in Syria, said about half of those who fled were children and adolescents. He said about 80% were Syrians returning to their homeland and the rest were Lebanese.

“These are, of course, people fleeing bombs and entering a country that has been suffering from its own crisis and violence for 13 years,” he told reporters in Geneva via video from the Lebanon-Syria border. He said Syria is facing an “economic collapse.”

“I think this just illustrates the kind of extremely difficult choices that both Syrians and Lebanese have to make,” he said.

Hezbollah began shooting at Israel on October 8 last year, when the war in Gaza began, and declared its solidarity with the Palestinians. Hezbollah has said it will not stop shooting until the Israeli offensive in Gaza ends.