Israeli strikes on a central Beirut medical centre have killed at least nine people, after Israel’s military suffered its deadliest day on the Lebanese front in a year of clashes with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Residents in the capital heard a missile flying overhead before hearing the sound of the explosion in the district of Bachoura. Videos showed the floor of an apartment building burning. Residents living in nearby areas began to flee, driving away quickly in cars and on scooters.
The Israeli strike hit a medical centre belonging to the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Organisation in the early hours of Thursday. The attack was the second airstrike on central Beirut this week, with most strikes having previously been confined to suburbs in the southern suburbs.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was targeting Beirut and issued evacuation warnings for various locations throughout the night. Three missiles hit the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, where the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed last week, and loud explosions were heard, Lebanese security officials said.
At least nine people were killed and others were wounded, Lebanese health officials said, adding that a further 46 people had been killed in Israeli attacks on the city in the previous 24 hours.
A Hezbollah-linked civil defence group said seven of its staff, including two medics, had been killed in the Beirut attack, which Israel said was a “precise” airstrike.
Two days after Iran fired more than 180 missiles into Israel, the wider region awaited Israel’s response to the attack. The US president, Joe Biden, said he would not support an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites, as he attempted to contain a rapidly escalating regional conflict.
On Wednesday, the IDF said eight soldiers were killed in ground combat in southern Lebanon. The large group of soldiers, from the commando brigade and including an officer, was involved in a clash with Hezbollah in a village north of the Israeli border community of Misgav Am, while two other soldiers from the Golani brigade were killed in a separate incident.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a condolence video: “We are at the height of a difficult war against Iran’s axis of evil, which wants to destroy us … This will not happen because we will stand together and with God’s help, we will win together.”
A separate strike on the Syrian capital, Damascus, reportedly killed Nasrallah’s son-in-law. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Hassan Jaafar Qasir was among three people killed in the attack, which flattened a building in the Mazzeh district, an area favoured by Hezbollah militants and officers of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Israeli airstrikes have repeatedly killed paramedics across Lebanon over the past two weeks, including 14 emergency health workers last weekend. On Monday, six paramedics were killed in the west Bekaa, all of them belonging to the Islamic Health Organisation.
Most of the paramedics killed by Israeli bombing since the beginning of the war were affiliated with Islamic health services, whether Hezbollah or other parties.
International human rights groups have stressed that the killing of any healthcare workers is unlawful, regardless of political affiliation, as long as they are not facilitating or taking part in combat.
