Israel’s strike on Beirut killed 37, Lebanon says

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: Rescue workers in Beirut searched on Saturday for people still missing in rubble a day after an Israeli airstrike, targeting Hezbollah commanders, killed at least 37 people in a suburb of the Lebanese capital, according to authorities.

Hezbollah said 16 members including senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and another commander, Ahmed Wahbi, were among those killed in the deadliest strike in nearly a year of conflict with Israel.

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Israel’s army said it hit an underground gathering of Aqil and leaders of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces, and had almost completely dismantled its military chain of command.

The attack levelled a multi-story residential building in the crowded suburb and damaged a nursery next door, a security source said. Three children and seven women were among those killed, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

Cross-border strikes continued on Saturday: Israeli warplanes carried out the heaviest bombardment in 11 months of fighting across Lebanon’s south, and Hezbollah claimed rocket attacks on military targets in Israel’s north.

The Israeli army said it hit around 180 targets, destroying thousands of rocket launch barrels.

Friday’s strike sharply escalated the conflict and inflicted another blow on Hezbollah after two days of attacks in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded.

The death toll in those attacks has risen to 39 with more than 3,000 injured.

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The attacks on communications devices were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati cancelled a planned trip to the UN General Assembly in New York.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said he was worried about escalation but that the Israeli killing of a top Hezbollah leader brought justice to the group, which Washington designates terrorists.

“While the risk of escalation is real, we actually believe there is also a distinct avenue to getting to a cessation of hostilities and a durable solution that makes people on both sides of the border feel secure,” Sullivan told reporters.

Anticipating retaliation, the Israeli military restricted gatherings and raised the alert level for residents of northern communities. The alert went as far south as the coastal city of Haifa, signalling Israel thought Hezbollah could strike deeper than it had since the war with Hamas began.

In southern Lebanon on Saturday, people described huge explosions that lit up the night sky and shook the ground as Israel carried out its latest strikes.

Hezbollah-aligned transport minister Ali Hamieh told reporters at the scene of Friday’s strike in the Beirut suburb that at least 23 people were still missing. “The Israeli enemy is taking the region to war,” he said.

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With at least 70 people killed in Lebanon this week, the conflict toll in the country since October has surpassed 740 during the worst Israel-Hezbollah flare-up since a 2006 war.

The UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine-Hennis Plasschaert, said on Friday the strike in a densely populated area of Beirut was part of “an extremely dangerous cycle of violence with devastating consequences. This must stop now”.