Beirut, Lebanon — Lebanon said four people were killed and 23 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut on Saturday, as rescue operations continued hours after a residential building was razed.
On Saturday morning, AFP footage showed an excavator removing the rubble of the eight-story building hit at around 04:00 a.m. (0200 GMT), with a fire truck and civil defense rescuers nearby while people gathered around the site.
“The Israeli enemy strike on Basta al-Fawqa in Beirut killed four people and injured 23 others,” the ministry said in a statement, giving a preliminary toll.
There was no evacuation warning from the Israeli military for the Basta area.
Rescuers were “removing rubble in Al-Mamoun Street in the Basta (neighborhood), where Israeli enemy aircraft targeted an eight-story building at dawn, completely destroying it, and leaving a large number of people dead and wounded,” the official National News Agency said.
The NNA also reported that Israeli jets launched six missiles at the building in the working-class Basta neighborhood causing “widespread destruction in buildings” nearby.
AFP journalists heard at least three large explosions in the capital at dawn.
Saturday’s strikes were the second time the Basta district had been targeted since war broke out, with deadly twin strikes early in October targeting the area and the Nweiri neighborhood.
Hours later the NNA reported another Israeli strike, this time on the Hadath area of Beirut’s southern suburbs, Hezbollah’s main bastion.
Following a year of cross-border exchanges, Israel dramatically escalated its air campaign in Lebanon in September and later sending ground troops into southern Lebanon to fight the militant group.
The majority of the strikes have targeted Hezbollah strongholds, but several have hit areas outside the militant group’s control, including central Beirut.
The strikes came after a day of bombardment in the capital’s southern suburbs, including air strikes that demolished an 11-story building.
On Monday, Lebanon’s health ministry said five people were killed and 31 wounded in an Israeli strike on central Beirut’s Zuqaq al-Blat district.
The day before, Israeli strikes targeted two Beirut districts, killing three people in the central Mar Elias neighborhood, while another raid killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif and others in Ras al-Nabaa, authorities said.
Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 3,645 people had been killed since October 2023, after Hezbollah initiated the clashes with Israel in solidarity with ally Hamas over the Gaza war. Most of the deaths have been since September this year.
