Israel strikes heart of Beirut, Iranian President defiant

Israel’s military said it killed 15 Hezbollah militants in south Lebanon on Thursday and bombed Beirut after its forces suffered their deadliest day.

They suffered their deadliest day on the Lebanese front in a year of clashes with the Iran-backed group.

Israel, which has been fighting with Hamas in Gaza for almost a year, sent its troops into southern Lebanon after two weeks of intense airstrikes.

The airstrike came in an escalating conflict that risks drawing in the United States and Iran.

Israel’s military said it had “eliminated” Rawhi Mushtaha, the head of the Hamas government in Gaza, along with senior security officials Sameh al-Siraj and Sami Oudeh in strikes three months ago.

In Lebanon, an airstrike on the municipality building of the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil killed 15 Hezbollah members, Israel said.

Lebanon’s health ministry said the death toll in the Beirut strike had climbed to nine and the Islamic Health Authority, a Hezbollah-linked civil defence group.

It said that seven of its staff including two medics had been killed.

Reuters witnesses reported hearing a massive blast, which a security source said had targeted a building in the district of Bachoura a few hundred meters from parliament.

The closest an Israeli strike has come to the central downtown district of Beirut.

Israel said it had conducted a precise air strike on the Lebanese capital.

“Another sleepless night in Beirut, the blast that shook the city. No warning sirens.

Not knowing what’s next, only that uncertainty lies ahead.

Anxiety and fear are omnipresent, UN special coordinator in Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said on X on Thursday.

Israel said on Wednesday that eight soldiers were killed in ground combat in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbour.

Iran launched its largest-ever assault on Israel on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for Israel’s assassination of senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders and its operations in Gaza and Lebanon.

Tehran said its attack was over, barring further provocation, but Israel and the United States have promised to hit back harder.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani called for serious ceasefire efforts to stop Israel’s “aggression’’ in Lebanon and said no peace was possible in the Middle East without the creation of a Palestinian state.

What is happening in the Middle East is a collective genocide, he said at the Asia Cooperation Dialogue summit in Doha, adding that his country has always warned of Israel’s impunity.

Speaking at the same gathering, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned against silence in the face of Israel’s warmongering.

“Any type of military attack, terrorist act or crossing our red lines will be met with a decisive response by our armed forces.”

More than a dozen Israeli missiles also hit the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed last week and loud blasts were heard, Lebanese security officials said.