At least six people were reported killed and 11 wounded in an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in central Beirut, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
The airstrike started a fire in an apartment of a high-rise building in the residential Bashoura district, not far from the United Nations headquarters, the prime minister’s office and parliament.
Other media outlets said Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency has accused Israel of using banned phosphorous bombs in the airstrike.
The attack, which occurred early on Thursday morning, is the first Israeli strike to hit the centre of Beirut since the war between Lebanon and Israel in 2006.
Multiple strikes were also reported in Beirut’s southern Dahiyeh suburbs as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) issued new evacuation orders for five buildings in Dahiyeh.
The area struck in central Beirut was not covered in those warnings, some outlets say.
In response to the strike in the southern suburbs, the Israeli military said it had conducted a precise strike in Beirut.
Throughout Wednesday, Israel’s military said it was engaged in “close-range encounters” with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The IDF says seven soldiers were killed in two Hezbollah attacks in southern Lebanon on Wednesday without elaboration.
The deaths followed an earlier announcement of the first Israeli combat death in Lebanon since the start of the incursion — a 22-year-old captain in a commando brigade. Another seven troops were wounded.
UN CONDEMNATION
UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council meeting that the Middle East was “fast becoming an inferno”.
“Exactly one week ago, I briefed the Security Council about the alarming situation in Lebanon. Since then, things have gone from bad to much, much worse,” he says.
“In the few short days since then, we have seen a dramatic escalation — so dramatic that I wonder what remains of the framework this Council established with resolution 1701 (2006).”
Mr Guterres says UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) peacekeepers remain in position despite Israeli requests to relocate.
“It is high time for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza with the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, the effective delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and irreversible progress to a two-state solution,” he says.
“It is high time for a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon …,” Mr Guterres told the UN Security Council
“We cannot look away … This deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence must stop. Time is running out.”
