Child among four killed in Israeli strike on Lebanese hospital

Israeli airstrikes near the main government hospital in south Beirut killed at least four people, including a child, on Monday, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

The strike on the car park of the Rafik Hariri University Hospital injured 24 more people, according to the government.

The Israeli military said it struck a “Hezbollah terrorist target” near the hospital, but the facility was not damaged. It alleges that the Iran-backed group is “systematically infiltrating its terrorist assets into civilian populations.”

The military warned people to evacuate or leave several locations in southern Beirut, but did not mention the hospital as one of the targets of the strike, the BBC reported.

The explosion near the hospital was one of 13 airstrikes carried out by Israel in southern Beirut in one of the most aggressive attacks on Lebanon in more than a week. Israel has said it plans to carry out new strikes in Lebanon against the Hezbollah-run financial institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan.

Lebanese authorities said at least 17 of its citizens, including four first responders, were killed Monday before Rafik Hariri’s strike.

Israeli airstrikes have hit large areas of Lebanon for weeks, forcing more than a million people to flee their homes, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. The Israeli ground invasion aimed at driving Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon left 2,483 people dead and another 11,628 injured, the ministry said.

Israeli authorities say 59 people were killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights during the same period.

Another medical facility in the Beirut suburb, Al Sahel Hospital, was evacuated after Israel said there was a Hezbollah money bunker underneath it.

Israel’s top military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said Hezbollah had hidden hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold at Al Sahel Hospital. He said Israel would not target the hospital but controlled the area.

Hospital director Fadi Alameh, also a lawmaker from the Shiite Amal Movement party, called the claims false and asked the Lebanese army to investigate and prove that the hospital only had operating rooms, patients and a morgue.

Hezbollah fighters continued to fire rockets at northern Israel, firing 170 shells that crossed the border by Monday evening, Israel said.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s forces have apologized for a strike that killed three Lebanese soldiers in southern Lebanon following condemnation by the Lebanese Armed Forces. Israel apologized for “these unfortunate circumstances,” adding that its troops struck a Hezbollah truck carrying a launcher and then carried out another strike after seeing another truck in the same area.

The Lebanese military later said that the truck targeted belonged to the army and that three militants were killed.

The Lebanese Army is not officially involved in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, US envoy Amos Hochstein held talks with Lebanese officials in Beirut on Monday about the terms of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, but said it was “not enough” for both sides to commit to implementing UN Resolution 1701. which ended the latest round of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

He called for southern Lebanon to be free of any troops or weapons other than those belonging to the Lebanese state.