Huge explosion seen near Beirut airport
Israeli bombing caused large explosions in Beirut, including one near the international airport during further night airstrikes targeting Hezbollah.
The airport is adjacent to Hezbollah’s stronghold of Dahiyeh in the capital. Plumes of smoke could be seen over the city Friday morning.
US media, citing Israeli officials, reported that the target was Hashem Saffieddin, a cousin of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Mr Saffieddin is considered the most likely candidate to replace Mr Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli attack last week.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said 37 people were killed and 151 injured in ground and air attacks in the past 24 hours.
Elsewhere, the Lebanese army said two soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon and 20 more towns and villages were ordered evacuated as Israeli forces continued their advance against Hezbollah.
The Israeli military had no comment, but said it killed a Hezbollah fighter near the border. Hezbollah said it was targeting Israeli forces on both sides of the border.
Two deadly attacks on Lebanese soldiers were just hours apart on Thursday, the third full day of the invasion.
In the first incident, one soldier was killed and another injured “as a result of Israeli enemy attacks during evacuation and rescue operations by the Lebanese Red Cross in the village of Taybeh,” the military said.
The Red Cross said four of the volunteers also had minor injuries and their movement was being coordinated with U.N. peacekeepers.
The military said in a second incident that another soldier was killed “after Israel’s enemies targeted a military post in the Bint Jubeir area.”
“Personnel from the garrison responded to the source of the fire,” the Lebanese army added, marking a rare involvement in a previously uncontested conflict.
The news came as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) instructed residents of 24 more towns and villages in the south, including the regional capital Nabatiyeh, to leave immediately for their own safety.
Unlike the communities ordered to be evacuated on Tuesday, they are all located north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the border.
Before the invasion, Israel had demanded that Hezbollah withdraw to Litani, in line with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the last war in 2006.
Speaking to the BBC from Beirut, Matthew Hollingworth, the World Food Program’s country director for Lebanon, described the situation in Lebanon as “horrifying”.
“The southern suburbs are filled with black smoke, we see it every morning when we go to work, we see it all day. And an alarming number of people are evacuating in the city. It is.”
“There are cars everywhere of people fleeing fighting in the south of the country and the southern suburbs. There are traffic jams everywhere and people are sleeping outside.”
Juan Gabriel Wells, Lebanon country director for the International Rescue Committee, said nearly half of the displaced people in government-run shelters surveyed by the organization were children under the age of 15.
‘It’s still a scene of chaos’ – BBC reporter outside Beirut building hit by Israeli airstrikes
Israel’s latest airstrike on Beirut came 24 hours after a residential building in the center of the capital was attacked. The Hezbollah-linked civil defense agency also said seven first responders were among the nine killed in the airstrike.
Lebanon’s health minister then said more than 40 paramedics and firefighters had died in fires in Israel in the past three days.
The Israeli Air Force carried out airstrikes on Thursday against targets believed to belong to Hezbollah, including its intelligence headquarters, weapons production sites and weapons storage facilities.
Two weeks of Israeli airstrikes and other attacks targeting Hezbollah have killed more than 1,300 people and displaced more than 1 million people across Lebanon, local authorities said.
After nearly a year of cross-border hostilities sparked by the Gaza war, Israel has gone on the offensive, threatening the safety of border residents displaced by Hezbollah rockets, missiles and drone attacks. He said he wanted to ensure his return.
Hezbollah is a Shiite Islamist military, political, and social organization that wields significant power in Lebanon. It is designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries.
The IDF also announced Thursday that its planes struck 200 Hezbollah “terror targets” overnight, including weapons storage facilities and observation posts in southern Lebanon and elsewhere. Approximately 15 Hezbollah fighters were killed in an attack on the town hall of Bint Jubail.
It later announced that a building housing three Hezbollah commanders had been destroyed during a joint operation carried out by air forces and infantry.
Hezbollah announced Thursday night that its “militants repulsed an unsuccessful attempt” by Israeli special forces to enter some border villages during the day.
The group also said it continued to fire rockets deep into northern Israel, targeting “enemy gatherings” and homes on the other side of the border.
The Israel Defense Forces announced that more than 230 projectiles were fired into Israeli territory over the course of the day. Most were intercepted or fell into open areas, but there were no reports of casualties.
Communities along Israel’s northern border fence are now closed military zones.
Dean Sweetland said his home near Israel’s northern border was shaken several times a day by rockets and anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon.
Dean Sweetland, a former British soldier who moved to Israel eight years ago, is one of the few people still living in a nearly deserted kibbutz within sight of the Lebanese town of Bint Jubeir. .
He told the BBC that his home was rocked several times a day by rockets and anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon, some of which were intercepted by Israeli air defenses overhead.
Referring to last year’s deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel that triggered the Gaza war, he said, “Hezbollah is just sitting on our border waiting to carry out October 7th against us. I can’t go on for another year,” he said.
“But my son is in the army. Would we want our children to be slaughtered in a place where Hezbollah has been waiting for us to enter for nearly 20 years?”
“It’s not going to be pretty,” he continued. “But if that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes.”
