IDF pounds Beirut after Hezbollah’s Simhat Torah eve rocket fire at central Israel
State media reports six buildings leveled in strikes on Lebanese capital; one said killed, several hurt in attack targeting office of Hezbollah-linked broadcaster Al-Mayadeen
Lebanon state media reported 17 Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, with six buildings leveled and the vacated offices of a Hezbollah-linked broadcaster hit on Wednesday, after the Lebanese terror group fired rockets at central Israel as the country began marking the Simhat Torah holiday.
AFPTV footage showed a massive explosion followed by smaller blasts in the southern suburbs following an Israeli army evacuation warning for the area, where Hezbollah holds sway.
The official National News Agency (NNA) reported at least 17 Israeli raids, marking one of the most intensive nights of strikes targeting the area in the past month.
Six buildings were destroyed around the suburb of Laylaki, NNA said, calling the raids “the most violent in the area since the beginning of the war.”
The strikes came shortly after the Israel Defense Forces’ Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, issued evacuation warnings on social media platform X.
There was no warning, however, for a strike that hit the Jnah neighborhood in southern Beirut that targeted an office the pro-Iran TV channel Al-Mayadeen said it vacated.
“Al-Mayadeen holds the Israeli occupation accountable for the attack on a known media office for a known media outlet,” said the pan-Arab broadcaster, which is aligned with Hezbollah.
The strike killed one person and wounded five others, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. The name of the person killed was unknown.
The office was hit by two rockets and “completely destroyed” in the strike, which sparked a blaze inside, NNA reported.
Al-Mayadeen’s office is located near the former premises of the Iranian embassy in Beirut and close to a Lebanese army checkpoint.
Israel launched strikes earlier Wednesday in the ancient coastal city of Tyre, which according to NNA caused “massive destruction and serious damage to homes, infrastructure, buildings, shops and cars.”
The Lebanese health ministry said 16 people were wounded in the strikes on Tyre, while AFP footage showed entire neighborhoods buried under rubble.
“The whole city shook,” Rana, a resident who asked to only use her first name over security concerns, told AFP after fleeing to the seafront following an Israeli military warning for people to evacuate much of Tyre’s center in the morning.
The IDF strikes targeted “command and control complexes of various Hezbollah units,” according to a social media post by Adraee.
Adraee described Tyre as an “important” Hezbollah stronghold, although Amal, an ally of the Iran-backed group, was believed to hold more sway there.
Before the Israel-Hezbollah border skirmishes began last year, at least 50,000 people lived in Tyre, a vibrant city home to both Christians and Muslims. The city was emptied of most of its population when Israel’s escalated its offensive against Hezbollah last month.
Only 14,500 remained there on Tuesday, said Bilal Kashmar of Tyre’s disaster management unit.
But the city saw a fresh exodus on Wednesday as people began to escape immediately after the Israeli army issued an evacuation warning for four neighborhoods at 8:00 a.m.
Emergency teams drove around the city, urging people to evacuate over megaphones, a video journalist collaborating with AFP said.
An AFP photographer in the city of Sidon, further north, saw dozens of cars on the coastal highway filled with families carrying mattresses, suitcases and clothes.
Tyre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It is home to important archaeological sites, mainly from Roman times.
Kashmar said there has yet to be a damage assessment for heritage sites.
However, “damage is possible,” he said, explaining that one strike hit less than 50 meters away from one of the city’s ruins.
UNESCO said it was “closely following the impact of the ongoing conflict on the World Heritage site of Tyre” using remote sensing tools and satellite imagery.
Since October 8, 2023, Hezbollah-led forces have been attacking Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
Some 60,000 residents were evacuated from northern towns on the Lebanon border shortly after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, amid fears Hezbollah would carry out a similar attack, and increasing rocket fire by the terror group.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel uncovered a plot by Hezbollah to attack via underground tunnels involving jeeps and missiles, telling French broadcasters CNews and Europe 1 that had the plan succeeded, such an assault would be been more damaging than the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught.
“A hundred meters, two hundred meters from the border we found tunnels, tunnels that were preparing an invasion of Israel, an attack even greater than on October 7,” Netanyahu said, according to a simultaneous translation provided by the networks.
“With jeeps, with motorbikes, with rockets, with missiles. They were planning an invasion.”
Netanyahu had told French daily Le Figaro earlier this month that the Israeli army found Russian cutting-edge military hardware in Hezbollah arms caches.
