An overnight Israeli airstrike targeted Beiruts Basta neighbourhood on November 23, 2024.

The video of an Israeli missile striking a residential building in Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday is going viral across various social media platforms amid ongoing clashes between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

According to The New York Post, the multi-story building was reportedly located in the Tayouneh neighbourhood, next to Horsh Beirut, a city park. The viral video of the incident showed that the impact of the missile attack was so catastrophic that it caused the entire structure to collapse instantly within a few seconds.

Watch the video here: 

Beirut, Lebanon

US missile blows up entire apartment building with innocent civilians inside

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About 40 minutes prior to this missile attack, an Israeli military spokesperson had issued a social media post in Arabic alerting residents in and around two buildings on the southern suburbs of Beirut to leave the area.

Also Read | Hezbollah Rules Out Negotiations During Fighting With Israel

The incident has sparked widespread outrage around the world. Local authorities and emergency services were immediately dispatched to the scene to assess the damage and provide assistance to any affected individuals.

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement said on Tuesday there would be no negotiations while fighting continued with Israel, and it claimed sole responsibility for a drone attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s holiday home.

The group “takes full and sole responsibility” for targeting Netanyahu’s house, Mohammad Afif, head of the Iranian-backed operator group’s media office, told a press conference in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

“If our hands didn’t reach you the previous time, then days, nights, and the battlefield are still between us,” he said.

(With inputs from Reuters)

Israel continued ferocious rounds of airstrikes on Hezbollah’s key strongholds in southern Beirut in Lebanon today. These strikes, which began last night in the heart of the capital city, sent plumes of thick smoke billowing into the sky, sparking fear and chaos in densely populated civilian areas. The operations marked Israel’s most intense strikes on Beirut since shifting its military focus from Gaza to Lebanon earlier this week.

The targets of these attacks were alleged Hezbollah strongholds scattered throughout Lebanon, with devastating consequences, including the deaths of hundreds of people. While Israeli television networks reported that Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was the primary target, a Hezbollah source, according to news agency AFP, later claimed Nasrallah was “fine,” though he has remained in hiding for years to evade assassination attempts. Nasrallah, who holds immense power in Lebanon, particularly among his Shiite supporters, is widely seen as the only figure capable of waging war or brokering peace.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that the strikes resulted in the deaths of Muhammad Ali Ismail, the commander of Hezbollah’s missile unit in southern Lebanon, his deputy, and other senior officials of the Iran-backed militia. Ahmad Ahmad, a local resident who fled from his home in southern Beirut during the strikes, described the attack as feeling “like an earthquake”, as quoted by news agency AFP.

The strikes continued into a second bombing wave, during which Israel claimed to have targeted Hezbollah’s weapons depots stored within buildings in southern Beirut. Hezbollah denied this claim, while reports emerged of six buildings being levelled and 91 people wounded, with six confirmed dead. Following the strikes, Hezbollah retaliated by launching rockets into Israel, which prompted warnings from the Israeli military for civilians in Hezbollah strongholds to evacuate immediately.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Warning

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, vowing that Israel would continue its military campaign against Hezbollah until the northern border was fully secured. He claimed that Israel has the right to defend itself, declaring that no reprieve would be given to Hezbollah, and hinting at a possible ground offensive in Lebanon.

Netanyahu also issued a stern warning to Tehran, accusing Iran of fueling the violence through its support of Hezbollah. “If you strike us, we will strike you,” Netanyahu warned, adding that Israel’s reach could extend throughout the Middle East if necessary.

As Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly, scores of diplomats walked out in protest. The devastating toll of the ongoing war in Gaza has drawn widespread condemnation, with more than 42,000 people reported dead in the besieged enclave. Entire neighbourhoods in Gaza have been reduced to rubble, with hundreds of thousands displaced. 

Nasrallah Targeted In Beirut 

The Friday evening Israeli airstrikes on southern Beirut were unprecedented in scale, reportedly involving tens of tons of explosives. Hezbollah’s top officials were thought to be present at the underground headquarters that were bombed, though reports from Hezbollah claimed that Nasrallah survived the strikes. Despite the extensive destruction, with entire buildings flattened, there was no immediate confirmation of Nasrallah’s death, though speculation continued to swirl.

Israeli officials, however, expressed confidence that the strikes had seriously compromised Hezbollah’s command structure. In a televised statement, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari claimed that the strike targeted Hezbollah’s central headquarters in the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut. The IDF also revealed it had notified the US about the airstrikes while the operation was underway, but the United States was not involved.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian in response to the Beirut strikes, condemned the attack as a “flagrant war crime,” further intensifying the already volatile situation.

The United Nations and international humanitarian organisations have sounded alarms over the deadly situation in Lebanon. “We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many fear that this is only the beginning,” said UN humanitarian coordinator Imran Riza, as quoted by news agency AFP. 
 

New Delhi:

1. On Saturday night, Hezbollah fired at least 10 missiles into northern towns and cities of Israel’s Jezreel Valley, the Times of Israel reported. This was the deepest incursion by Hezbollah rockets into Israeli territory since the conflict began in early October. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intercepted most of the missiles, but one man in his 60s suffered minor injuries from shrapnel.
2. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the missile barrage and stated that it had aimed at the Ramat David Airbase. Located 50 km from the Lebanon border, the airbase is a key strategic site for the Israeli Air Force. 
3. In response, Israeli jets carried out a series of retaliatory strikes across southern Lebanon. The IDF reported that its airstrikes targeted at least 110 Hezbollah positions, including rocket launchers and operational facilities. The IDF claims it successfully disrupted Hezbollah’s preparations for further rocket launches.
4. The IDF stated that their Saturday afternoon air raids hit approximately 290 Hezbollah sites, including thousands of rocket launcher barrels, as part of their strategy to dismantle Hezbollah’s rocket-firing capabilities. These preemptive strikes were launched to degrade Hezbollah’s ability to launch large-scale attacks on Israeli territory.
5. The intensification of Israeli airstrikes follows Hezbollah’s earlier attack on Israeli military targets, including seven positions in northern Israel and the Golan Heights. Israel’s military reported that Hezbollah had fired about 90 rockets at Israeli forces during these engagements.
6. In addition to military targets, Israel conducted an airstrike on southern Beirut, killing senior Hezbollah commanders. According to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, the strike left 37 people dead. Among those killed were three children and seven women. Hezbollah confirmed that Ibrahim Aqil, the head of its elite Radwan Force, and other high-ranking commanders were among the dead. 
7. Following the loss of its commanders, Hezbollah vowed retaliation. Ahmed Mahmud Wahbi, another high-ranking Hezbollah commander, was also killed in the same Israeli strike. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah condemned the attack, calling it an act of war, and promised retribution against Israel.
8. The United Nations has expressed concern over the situation, calling for “maximum restraint” from all parties. Germany and other nations have urged an immediate de-escalation. International mediators, particularly from the United States, are working to prevent the Israel-Hezbollah conflict from spiralling into a regional war.
9. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an expansion of the country’s war objectives, including the return of northern Israeli residents, who have been forced to evacuate due to Hezbollah’s attacks. Netanyahu said the military’s focus was on dismantling Hezbollah’s ability to pose a threat to Israel’s northern borders, stating that the country’s actions speak for themselves.
10. Amid the heightened conflict, the US State Department has issued an advisory for American citizens in Lebanon, urging them to leave the country while commercial flights are still available. The US raised its travel advisory for Lebanon in July following another Israeli strike that killed a Hezbollah commander in Beirut.

An undated handout photo released by the Hezbollah military media press office on September 21, 2024, shows Hezbollah top commander Ibrahim Aqil, who was killed on September 20 in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Ibrahim Aqil, the Hezbollah operations commander killed in an Israeli strike on Friday (September 20, 2024), had a $7 million bounty on his head for two 1983 Beirut truck bombings that killed more than 300 people at the American embassy and a U.S. Marines barracks.

Two security sources in Lebanon confirmed the veteran fighter was killed in an airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs during a meeting of the elite Radwan unit of the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group.

Aqil, who has also used the aliases Tahsin and Abdelqader, was the second member of Hezbollah’s top military body, the Jihad Council, to be killed in two months after an Israeli strike in the same area targeted Fuad Shukr in July.

Israel escalated its attacks on the group this week after months of border fighting triggered by the conflict in Gaza that began on Oct. 7 with a deadly raid and hostage-taking in Israel by Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas.

Like Shukr, Aqil is a veteran of Hezbollah, which was founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the early 1980s to battle Israeli forces that had invaded and occupied Lebanon.

Born in a village in Lebanon’s Beqaa valley sometime around 1960, Aqil had joined the other big Lebanese Shia political movement, Amal, before switching to Hezbollah as a founding member, according to a security source.

The United States accuses him of a role in the Beirut truck bombings at the American embassy in April 1983, which killed 63 people, and a U.S. Marine barracks six months later that killed 241 people.

It further accused him of directing the abduction of American and German hostages in Lebanon and listed him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2019, putting the $7 million bounty on his head.

Referring to the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks and other attacks on Western interests in Lebanon in the 1980s, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a 2022 interview with an Arabic broadcaster that they were carried out by small groups not linked to Hezbollah.

Aqil’s cohort of founding Hezbollah operatives helped turn the group from a shadowy militia into Lebanon’s most powerful military and political organisation, pushing Israel from its occupation of the south in 2000 and fighting it again in 2006.

When Shukr was killed in July, it was seen as the heaviest blow to its command structure since the 2008 assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, remembered by Hezbollah as a legendary commander but by Israel and the United States as a terrorist.

Aqil, whose bounty was set by the United States at an even higher value than that of Shukr’s, may prove a similar blow.

An ambulance arrives at a hospital as more than 1,000 people, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, were wounded on September 17, 2024, when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon, according to a security source, in Beirut, Lebanon.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

Dozens of people, including Iran’s ambassador, were wounded in Beirut’s suburbs and other parts of Lebanon after their handheld pagers exploded today (September 17, 2024), according to media reports and security officials. It wasn’t immediately clear if people were killed.

A senior military intelligence official and an official with a Lebanese group with knowledge of the situation, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said that pagers carried by Hezbollah members were detonated. The second official said it was believed to be an Israeli attack.

Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, close to the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, said on its Telegram channel that Mojtaba Amani, Iran’s ambassador in Lebanon, has a superficial injury and is under observation at a hospital. 

Meanwhile, another semi-official Mehr news agency, also on its Telegram channel reported that Amani was wounded by a pager explosion.

Photos and videos from Beirut’s southern suburbs circulating on social media and in local media showed people lying on the pavement with wounds on their hands or near their pants pockets.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah previously warned the group’s members not to carry cellphones, saying that they could be used by Israel to track their movements and to carry out targeted strikes.

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Paris:

After an escalation of hostilities Sunday amid over 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement, here are the major eruptions of violence since their 2006 war.

The devastating month-long war in the summer of 2006 cost Lebanon more than 1,200 lives, mostly civilians, while some 160 Israelis were killed, mostly soldiers.

The following years saw sporadic attacks, which surged following the October 7 attack by Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas on Israel.

2007-2013: rocket fire and incursion

On June 17, 2007, two rockets were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon hitting an industrial zone in the border town of Kiryat Shmona without causing casualties. Hezbollah denies responsibility.

In early August 2010, a move by Israeli troops to uproot trees in a disputed border area at Adaysseh sparks a deadly border battle in which two Lebanese soldiers and a journalist are killed along with a senior Israeli officer.

On August 7, 2013, four Israeli soldiers on patrol were wounded in a blast claimed by Hezbollah 400 metres (yards) inside Lebanese territory.

2014-2015: Israeli strikes

On February 26, 2014, Hezbollah says Israeli warplanes had carried out an air raid on one of its positions at Lebanon’s border with Syria.

On October 7, Israel strikes two Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon in response to its bomb attack against Israeli troops on the ceasefire line on the Shebaa hills between the two countries that wounded two soldiers.

On January 28, 2015, two Israeli soldiers are killed in a Hezbollah ambush in the Shebaa hills.

The attack is carried out in retaliation for a raid blamed on Israel 10 days earlier on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan Heights, which killed at least six members of Hezbollah and an Iranian general.

In retaliation, Israeli tanks and artillery bombarded several villages in southern Lebanon.

2019: drones and missiles strikes

On August 25, 2019, two explosive-laden drones hit the southern Beirut suburbs, causing material damage according to Hezbollah, which blames the attack on Israel.

The day before, an Israeli air strike in Syria had killed two Hezbollah members.

On September 1, the Israeli army and Hezbollah traded missile fire along the border.

2021: uptick in clashes

On August 4, 2021, three rockets were fired from Lebanon, of which two fell in Israel. The Israeli army responds with air strikes on southern Lebanon.

On August 6, Hezbollah fires more than 10 rockets at Israel, which responds with artillery fire.

2023-2024: October 7 attacks aftermath

Hezbollah has traded almost daily cross-border fire with Israel since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel which triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.

In southern Lebanon, a Reuters video journalist was killed on October 13, and six other journalists from AFP, Reuters and Al Jazeera were wounded in a strike by an Israeli tank.

On January 2, 2024, Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri was killed in Beirut’s southern suburbs in a strike blamed on Israel.

On February 26, Israeli strikes Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley in the first such raid on Lebanon’s east since fighting erupted in October.

July, August 2024: Hezbollah, Fatah chiefs killed

On July 27, a rocket strike killed 12 children aged 10-16 in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

Israel blames the strike on Hezbollah, which denies the claim.

The Israeli army responds by striking Beirut’s southern suburbs on July 30, killing Hezbollah’s top commander in the south, Fuad Shukr.

In an August 21 strike, the Israeli military kills Khalil Maqdah, described by the Palestinian Fatah movement as “one of the leaders” of its armed wing in Lebanon.

August 2024: hostilities surge

On August 25, Hezbollah says it launched a barrage of hundreds of rockets and drones on Israel in response to the killing of Shukr. It says its operation “was completed and accomplished”.

But Israel says it has thwarted the attack, launching air strikes into Lebanon that the military says destroyed “thousands” of Hezbollah rocket launchers.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Israel:

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was due to travel to Egypt on Tuesday for talks on a Gaza ceasefire after saying Israel had accepted a US “bridging proposal” for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same.

Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East since the Palestinian operative group’s October 7 attack triggered the war with Israel, was scheduled to fly from Tel Aviv to El Alamein, the Mediterranean city famous for a World War II battle in 1942, to speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at his summer palace.

Afterwards, he will head to a meeting with Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, in Doha, the scene of ceasefire talks last week.

Both Egypt and Qatar are working alongside the United States to broker a truce in the 10-month Gaza conflict.

Washington put forward the latest proposal last week after the talks in Doha.

Blinken said Monday he had “a very constructive meeting” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who “confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal”.

Ahead of those talks, Hamas called on the mediators to implement the framework set out by US President Joe Biden in late May, rather than hold more negotiations.

The movement said on Sunday that the current US proposal “responds to Netanyahu’s conditions” and leaves him “fully responsible for thwarting the efforts of the mediators”.

Earlier on Monday, the US secretary of state had said: “This is a decisive moment — probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security”.

Months of on-off negotiations with US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have failed to produce an agreement.

Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in reaching an accord that diplomats say would help avert a wider conflagration in the Middle East that could draw in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“There is, I think, a real sense of urgency here, across the region, on the need to get this over the finish line and to do it as soon as possible,” Blinken said.

The Biden administration is under domestic pressure over Gaza, with pro-Palestinian protests taking place outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday.

Biden said in his farewell speech to the convention that the protesters “have a point”, adding that “a lot of innocent people are being killed, on both sides”.

Permanent ceasefire

Israel and Hamas have traded blame for delays in reaching a truce deal.

Hamas insisted on “a permanent ceasefire and a comprehensive (Israeli) withdrawal from the Gaza Strip”, saying Netanyahu wanted to keep Israeli forces at several strategic locations within the territory.

Western ally Jordan, hostage supporters who protested in Tel Aviv during Blinken’s visit, and Hamas itself have called for pressure on Netanyahu in order for an agreement to be reached.

Far-right members crucial to the prime minister’s governing coalition oppose any truce.

The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 40,139 people, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and operative deaths.

Out of 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack, 111 are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

The Biden framework would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks while Israeli hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters Gaza.

Netanyahu said on Monday that negotiators were aiming to “release a maximum number of living hostages” in the first phase of any ceasefire.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Beirut:

Batoul and her family have been scrambling to secure housing outside Beirut’s southern suburbs where an Israeli strike killed a senior Hezbollah commander last week, but spiking demand has sent prices soaring.

Many in the southern suburbs — a packed residential area known as Dahiyeh which is also a Hezbollah bastion — have been trying to leave, fearing full-blown war between the Iran-backed group and Israel in the wake of the commander’s killing.

“We are with the resistance (Hezbollah) to death,” said Batoul, a 29-year-old journalist, declining to give her last name as the matter is sensitive.

“But it’s normal to be scared… and look for a safe haven,” she told AFP.

Iran and its regional allies have vowed revenge for the killing, blamed on Israel, of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week, just hours after the Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs killed Hezbollah’s top military commander Fuad Shukr.

Hezbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.

After the twin killings, fears have mounted of an all-out war, with foreign airlines suspending Beirut flights and countries urging their nationals to leave.

Last week’s Beirut strike also killed an Iranian adviser and five civilians — three women and two children.

“Whoever says they want to stay in Dahiyeh while it’s being bombed is lying to themself,” Batoul said.

‘No choice’

On Tuesday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said his Shiite Muslim movement and Iran were “obliged to respond” to Israel “whatever the consequences”.

Batoul said she had been trying unsuccessfully to rent in “safe areas” — unaffiliated to Hezbollah — outside Beirut, but landlords were charging “exorbitant prices”.

She said one landlord cancelled suddenly even after she agreed to pay six months’ rent in advance for a flat in the mountain town of Sawfar.

A 55-year-old teacher and Hezbollah supporter, who requested anonymity because the matter is sensitive, said she felt lucky to find a flat about 15 kilometres (nine miles) outside Beirut.

But it came with a price tag of $1,500 a month, in a country battered by more than four years of economic crisis.

The teacher, also a Dahiyeh resident, said price gouging was rampant, noting another apartment was listed online for $1,500 a month “but when we arrived, they asked for $2,000”.

“They know we have no choice. When there is a war, people will pay any amount of money to be safe,” she said.

But “many people will stay (in Dahiyeh) because they cannot afford to rent,” she added.

Riyad Bou Fakhreddine, a broker who rents out homes in the Mount Lebanon area near Beirut, said apartments were being snapped up “within half an hour to an hour of being listed”.

Some landlords have asked him to raise apartments normally priced at around $500 a month to as high as $2,000, he said.

He said he refused.

“I tell them I’m not a crisis profiteer. I don’t want to take advantage of people’s fears,” he said.

‘Polarisation’

Almost 10 months of cross-border violence have killed some 558 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including at least 116 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.

Ali, who rents serviced apartments in central Beirut, said his phone had “not stopped ringing” ahead of Nasrallah’s speech.

“I booked 10 flats in two days,” he said.

“Many people walked in and booked on the spot… Or called me and were here within an hour,” said the 32-year-old, who requested to be identified only by his first name.

In 2006, Hezbollah fought a devastating war with Israel, whose air force bombarded Beirut’s southern suburbs nightly for a month, flattening hundreds of apartment blocks.

Back then, many people from across Lebanon’s sectarian divides expressed support for Hezbollah and solidarity with the Shiite Muslim community, many of whom lost their homes and livelihoods.

But this time, Dahiyeh resident Batoul said solidarity was lacking, with politicians divided after Hezbollah decided unilaterally to begin attacking Israeli positions on October 8.

In 2006, “there wasn’t such polarisation,” she said.

Landlords and others profiting from high demand on housing now are simply driven by greed, Batoul said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A U.S. Marine Osprey takes off from the U.S. Embassy in Aukar, northeast of Beirut, Lebanon, March 19, 2020. An unknown gunman opened fire outside the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon late Wednesday night, Sept. 20, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

An unknown gunman opened fire outside the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon late September 20 night.

Embassy spokesperson Jake Nelson said in a statement that “small arms fire was reported in the vicinity of the entrance” of the heavily fortified compound in the Beirut suburb of Awkar.

“There were no injuries, and our facility is safe,” he said. “We are in close contact with host country law enforcement authorities.”

Earlier this year marked the 40th anniversary of a deadly bombing attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut on April 18. U.S. officials blame the attack, which killed 63 people, on the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Following that attack, the embassy was moved from central Beirut to the Christian suburb of Awkar, north of the capital. Another bomb attack struck the new location on Sept. 20, 1984.

In recent years there have been no reported attacks on the embassy.