At least 6 said killed in central Beirut after IDF announces ‘targeted’ attack

Israel also reportedly hits sites in Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh where military issued evacuation orders; brother of slain Hezbollah commander said killed in Damascus strike

A firefighter stands in front of an apartment hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A firefighter stands in front of an apartment hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

At least six people were killed in an Israeli airstrike in central Beirut early Thursday, Lebanese health officials said, after the Israel Defense Forces announced it was carrying out a “targeted” attack in Lebanon’s capital.

Reports said the target was an apartment building in Beirut’s Bashoura neighborhood, close to parliament, the nearest Israeli strikes have come to Lebanon’s seat of government. The attack also marked the second time Israel has struck central Beirut this week.

Images from the scene showed a heavily damaged building with a fire on one the lower floors.

In addition to the six fatalities, seven people were wounded in the strike, according to Lebanese health officials.

Multiple strikes were also reported in Beirut’s southern suburbs — a Hezbollah stronghold known as Dahiyeh — in areas issued evacuation warnings by the Israeli army. The area struck in central Beirut was not covered in those warnings.

An IDF statement confirming the military was striking in Beirut said further details would be released later.

The strikes in Beirut came hours after Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported three people were killed and three others were wounded in an alleged Israeli strike on Damascus Wednesday afternoon.

Police stand guard at the site of an apparent Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria, October 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

SANA did not identify the dead, describing them as “civilians,” though reports later named one of them as Hassan Qassir — the brother of a senior Hezbollah commander killed by Israel on Tuesday.

Qassir’s brother, Muhammad Ja’far, had headed Hezbollah’s Unit 4400, which is tasked with delivering weapons from Iran and its proxies to Lebanon. He was killed in a strike in Beirut alongside the commander of the Imam Hossein Division, an Iranian militia which operates alongside Hezbollah.

According to various Arab media outlets, Hassan Qassir was also the son-in-law of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who Israel killed in Dahiyeh last week.

Along with the aerial campaign against Hezbollah, Israel launched a ground campaign in southern Lebanon on Monday, when the 98th Division crossed over the border to demolish the terror group’s infrastructure with the aim of safely returning the tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to their homes in the north of the country.

The IDF has said that it intends for the operations to end as quickly as possible and reiterated on Wednesday that any house used by the Lebanese terror group for military purposes would be a target.

The IDF’s ground offensive began some two weeks into intensified fighting with Hezbollah, and after Operation Northern Arrows was launched earlier in September to meet the recently declared war goal of bringing residents of the north back to their homes following their evacuation last October under heavy rocket fire from the Lebanese terror group.

So far, the nearly yearlong skirmishes have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, and — excluding eight soldiers killed Wednesday in the ground operation — the deaths of 22 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.

IDF soldiers killed during fighting against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on October 2, 2024: (L-R) Top: Staff Sgt. Ido Broyer, Staff Sgt. Almken Terefe, Sgt. First Class Or Mantzur, Cpt. Eitan Itzhak Oster; Bottom: Sgt. First Class Nazar Itkin, Cpt. Harel Etinger, Sgt. First Class Noam Barzilay, Cpt. Itai Ariel Giat. (Israel Defense Forces)

Hezbollah had named 516 members killed by Israel during the skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. Another 92 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have also been killed. These numbers have not been consistently updated since Israel began its new offensive against Hezbollah in September.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says more than 1,000 Lebanese have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, without specifying how many were civilians. Israel has said that many Hezbollah operatives are among the dead. The government says that one million people — a fifth of the population — have fled their homes.

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