close
close
Tue. Oct 22nd, 2024

Four people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli airstrike near a South Beirut hospital.

Four people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli airstrike near a South Beirut hospital.

Four people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli airstrike near the main government hospital in south Beirut, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

The strike appeared to hit the car park of the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, a hospital source said, and the health ministry said 24 people were injured.

It was one of 13 airstrikes carried out across southern Beirut on Monday night as the Israeli military said it attacked Hezbollah-linked targets.

An Israeli official had previously warned people to leave several locations in south Beirut, but the Rafik Hariri hospital was not one of the locations mentioned.

Video from the Dahiya neighborhood in southern Beirut, where seven locations where strikes would be announced in advance, showed local residents fleeing in cars and on foot as the strikes began.

One location identified by the Israeli army as a target was approximately 400 meters from Beirut Airport, the only international airport serving Lebanon.

Local media shared photos of some of the airport’s windows shattered by the blast.

Separately, earlier on Monday, the Israeli military said it had discovered a Hezbollah bunker hidden under another hospital in south Beirut, which has since been evacuated.

IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said, without providing evidence, that a bunker beneath the Sahel hospital in Haret Hreik contained hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold that were used to finance Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel.

The director of the Sahel hospital denied there was a bunker underneath and called on the Lebanese army to inspect the site.

Israel appears to have expanded its war against Hezbollah beyond military infrastructure and says it is targeting the group’s financial networks.

On Sunday evening, Israel carried out air strikes on branches of a Hezbollah-linked financial association in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut, as well as in the south and east of the country.

The Israeli military said the attack targeted money belonging to the Al-Qard Al-Hasan Association (AQAH). It offers financial services to civilians in areas where Hezbollah has strong support, but Israel and the US accuse it of being a front for the Iran-backed group to finance its activities.

There was no immediate comment from AQAH or Hezbollah.

Also on Monday, US President Joe Biden’s special envoy to the Middle East arrived in Beirut to explore the possibility of ending the war through negotiations.

Amos Hochstein said the United States wants the war in Lebanon to end “as soon as possible.”

He said U.N. Resolution 1701, which calls for the Lebanese state to be the sole armed force in southern Lebanon, is “not enough” and the U.S. is studying what more needs to be done.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah fighters continued to fire rockets at northern Israel, with the military reporting that 170 projectiles had crossed the border by Monday evening.

Israel has launched an intensive air campaign and ground invasion against Hezbollah after nearly a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the Gaza war, saying it wants to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of Israeli border areas displaced by rocket attacks.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of the Palestinians on October 8, 2023, the day after its ally Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel.

More than 2,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, including 1,800 in the past five weeks, according to the country’s health ministry. Israeli authorities say 59 people were killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.

Follow us:

Related Post