Official Lebanese media reported four Israeli strikes on south Beirut Sunday, shortly after calls by Israel’s army for residents to evacuate the Hezbollah stronghold which has been bombarded for several days.
“Enemy warplanes launched two strikes on the southern suburbs, the first targeted the Saint Therese area, and the second targeted the Burj al-Barajneh area,” Lebanon’s National News Agency said.
The NNA later reported two additional strikes, including one it described as “violent”.
One AFP correspondent said her windows shook after one of the strikes, while another reporter heard loud explosions.
AFP live video footage captured four strikes, two of them triggering big explosions with flaming flares shooting out of thick black smoke.
An Israeli military statement issued overnight Sunday to Monday said the IDF had “struck Hezbollah terrorist targets and weapons storage facilities in Beirut”.
Israeli warplanes hit targets belonging to Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut, the statement added.
They had also hit “Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in the area of Beirut”, reporting secondary explosions after the strikes “indicating the presence of weaponry”.
Earlier Sunday evening, Israel military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued an “urgent warning to the residents of the southern suburb of Burj al-Barajneh and Hadath” to leave these areas.
“You are located near Hezbollah facilities and interests, and the IDF (Israeli military) will operate against them in the near future,” he added in a statement on X.
In the night from Saturday to Sunday, the southern suburbs were hit by more than 30 strikes, the NNA said, in one of the most intense barrages yet.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and its foe Israel have been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire for nearly a year in fallout from the Gaza war.
But since September 23, Israel has launched devastating air strikes on targets in Lebanon that have killed more than 1,110 people and forced more than one million to flee their homes.
Israel last week killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in south Beirut, a densely populated area before residents fled Israel’s intensifying bombardment.
