Heavy Israeli air strikes shake Beirut; Hezbollah loses contact with presumed chief
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Smoke rises over Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs, following an Israeli air strike.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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BEIRUT – Israeli air attacks battered Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight and early on Oct 6, the most intense bombardment of the Lebanese capital since Israel sharply escalated its campaign against Hezbollah.
Orange fireballs and thick black smoke could be seen across Beirut for nearly 30 minutes and from several kilometres away.
It was Israel’s single biggest bombardment of Beirut so far, witnesses and military analysts on local TV channels said.
On Oct 6, a grey haze hung over the city and rubble was strewn across streets in its southern suburbs.
“Last night was the most violent of all the previous nights. Buildings were shaking around us, and at first I thought it was an earthquake. There were dozens of strikes – we couldn’t count them all – and the sounds were deafening,” said Mr Hanan Abdullah, a resident of the Burj al-Barajneh area in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Israel said its air force “conducted a series of targeted strikes on a number of weapons storage facilities and terrorist infrastructure sites belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation in the area of Beirut”.
The Israeli military said that before the strike, it took steps “to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including advancing warnings to the population in the area”.
For days, Israel has been bombing Beirut suburbs considered strongholds of Hezbollah, killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah
A Lebanese security source said on Oct 6 that Hashem Safieddine, the potential successor, has been out of contact since Oct 4
The Israeli military said it eliminated Nasrallah in a strike on the group’s central command headquarters in Beirut on Sept 27. Hezbollah confirmed he was killed.
Lebanese security sources said Israeli strikes since Oct 4 on Dahiyeh, a residential area and Hezbollah stronghold south of central Beirut, have kept rescue workers from scouring the site of an Oct 3 attack.
Hezbollah has not commented on Safieddine.
His loss would be another blow to the group and its patron Iran. Israeli strikes across the region in the past year, sharply accelerated in recent weeks, have devastated Hezbollah’s leadership.
Israel has been expanding its actions in Lebanon. On Oct 5, it made its first strike in the northern city of Tripoli
Hashem Safieddine, Hezbollah’s presumed leader, has been out of contact since Oct 4.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Civilian deaths, displacement
Before the recent upsurge, exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah had been mostly limited to the Israel-Lebanon border area, in parallel to Israel’s year-old war in Gaza against Palestinian group Hamas.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Oct 5 that Israel has killed 440 Hezbollah fighters in its ground operations in southern Lebanon and destroyed 2,000 Hezbollah targets.
Israel said it stepped up its assault on Hezbollah to enable the safe return of tens of thousands of citizens to homes in northern Israel, bombarded by the group for nearly a year.
The Israeli authorities said on Oct 5 that nine Israeli soldiers had been killed
The Israeli assault has also killed hundreds of ordinary Lebanese, Lebanese officials say, and forced 1.2 million people – almost a quarter of the population – from their homes.
The Lebanese security official told Reuters that the strike on Oct 5 on a Palestinian refugee camp in Tripoli killed a member of Hamas, his wife and two children.
Hamas’ armed wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, confirmed the death of two of its fighters, including one of its leaders, Saeed Atallah, who was killed in Tripoli.
The Israeli military said in a statement it killed two Hamas members operating in Lebanon, but did not say whether they were in Tripoli, a Sunni Muslim-majority port city also targeted during a 2006 war with Hezbollah.
Gaza war anniversary
In northern Israel, air raid sirens sounded on Oct 6 after sirens the day before sent people running for shelters amid rocket fire from Lebanon.
Hezbollah said on Oct 5 it fired missiles at what it called “ATA company for military industries near Sakhnin base”, close to Haifa. It was not immediately clear what Hezbollah was referring to.
The Israeli army said two projectiles crossed from Lebanon, one of which was intercepted while the other landed but caused no damage.
Israel on Oct 7 will mark the first anniversary of Hamas’ attack on southern Israel
Israel’s assault on Gaza since the Oct 7 attack has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians and displaced nearly all the enclave’s 2.3 million people.
The impact on civilians has prompted widespread protests internationally. Thousands took to the streets in major cities around the world on Oct 5 as the anniversary approached.
Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas, and which has lost key commanders of its elite Revolutionary Guards Corps to Israeli air strikes in 2023, launched ballistic missiles at Israel on Oct 1. The strikes did little damage.
Israel has been weighing options for its response.
Oil prices have risen on the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iranian oil facilities.
US President Joe Biden on Oct 4 urged Israel to consider alternatives to striking Iranian oil infrastructure. REUTERS
