Death toll increases as central Beirut hit by Israeli air strikes
I am currently in the centre of Beirut, and we’ve been hearing explosions on almost an hourly basis.
The loudest and biggest one happened at around 20 past midnight local time and it came from an area called Bashoura, which is only about a kilometre south of where I’m standing now. The sound reverberated around the buildings and shocked everyone nearby.
We know that a building was targeted – a certain floor on a building.
The Ministry of Public Health said the death toll now stands at five. It started off at two, and three more died of their injuries and there are about eight people in hospital currently being treated for their injuries.
This isn’t the first time central Beirut has been targeted, but it is only the second time in a year of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.
I’m just hearing another explosion and it does sound slightly further away. This is the third explosion we’ve heard.
Number of dead from Israeli air strikes on central Beirut rises to 6
The death toll from the Israeli air strikes on central Beirut earlier tonight has now risen to six, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in the Lebanese capital reports.
“We know so far there have been six fatalities,” Al Jazeera’s Laura Khan reports. “Two died immediately and more died later from their wounds in hospital, and there are still seven people being treated in hospital,” Khan said.
Hezbollah ‘health unit’ target of Israeli strike on central Beirut: Report
The Associated Press (AP) news agency reports that the target of an Israeli air strike on central Beirut was an apartment building linked to Hezbollah’s ‘health unit’.
The air strike late on Wednesday night reportedly killed at least six people and started a fire in a multistorey building in the residential Bashoura district.
Hezbollah-aligned al-Manar TV station said the strike targeted the group’s health unit, AP reports. It marks the second time Israel has struck the Lebanese capital’s downtown area this week.
US resident killed in Israeli strike on Lebanon
A resident of the city of Dearborn in the US state of Michigan has been killed in an Israeli strike on Lebanon, the Reuters news agency reports.
The US State Department said it was “deeply saddened” by the killing of Kamel Ahmad Jawad, whom a friend and a local group in his home town of Dearborn said was killed in an Israeli air strike, describing him as “one of the kindest and most generous humans”.
Jawad was in Lebanon taking care of his elderly mother, according to the Detroit News.
When asked about reports of an American killed in Lebanon, a State Department spokesperson said: “It’s our understanding that it was a legal permanent resident, not an American citizen [who was killed in Lebanon] but we obviously offer our sincerest condolences to the family.”
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli air strike in the Dahiyeh neighbourhood of Beirut, Lebanon, on Wednesday
