Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, FT Editor, picks her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
At least 22 people were killed in a series of Israeli airstrikes in central Beirut, raising fears that Israel’s pursuit of Hizbollah is expanding deeper into the Lebanese capital.
The attack occurred more than 5km from the southern suburbs, which has been the focus of Israel’s stepped-up offensive against the Lebanon-based militant movement. This is the second time Israeli forces have attacked central Beirut in less than two weeks.
LebanonCaretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati described Thursday night’s attack as “completely unacceptable” as he reiterated his call for a ceasefire. Health authorities said at least 117 people were injured in the attack.
Beirut was in a tense state on Friday as Israeli drones buzzed overhead and warplanes broke the sound barrier. The city is filled with people fleeing intense fighting that continues in southern Lebanon.
One of Thursday’s strikes targeted a residential building not far from the Lebanese national museum, in an area filled with small shops and apartment complexes. A family of eight people, including three children, were killed in the bombing, said a relative who spoke on condition of anonymity. Israel did not say who it was targeting.
“We are all from southern Lebanon and have been displaced here in recent weeks due to Israeli aggression,” the relative told the Financial Times. “I don’t understand why they target us. These are just families.”
Lebanese are increasingly fearful that Israel is expanding its targeting by striking areas like those attacked on Thursday that have no known Hizbollah presence.
In the ruined Burj Abi Haidar neighborhood, site of another Israeli attack, rescue workers were still searching for bodies on Friday, sifting through the rubble of what residents said was at least Three buildings collapsed.
“A lot of families around here are poor and unrelated,” said Abu Ahmad, who lives in a building near the attack site. His grandfather’s apartment was in one of the collapsed buildings.
The Israel Defense Forces did not issue any warnings to the public before Thursday night’s bombing.
Israel says it is fighting the Iran-backed militant group to stop it from firing rockets into northern Israel, which has displaced 60,000 Israelis.
Hizbollah says its attacks on Israel are aimed at supporting Hamas, the Iran-aligned militant group that controls Gaza and that the October 7 attack in Israel sparked the war.
After nearly a year of cross-border shooting, Israel assassinated Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last month. The country’s army has begun a ground offensive in southern Lebanon.
Speaking after assessing the situation with Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency in southern Lebanon, the head of the Israeli army, Herzi Halevi, pledged that fighting would continue “until we ensure that we can bring people back safely.”
“If anyone considers rebuilding these villages again, they will know that building terrorist infrastructure is not worth it because the IDF will neutralize them again,” he said.
Two Lebanese soldiers were killed and three others injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a building near a Lebanese Army checkpoint in the south of the country, the Lebanese Army said on Friday.
While the Lebanese army has not actively participated in the fighting between the Israeli army and Hizbollah, two other soldiers have been killed in fighting since September.
The war is having a punitive effect on civilians. Lebanese authorities say 1.2 million people have been forced to flee their homes and more than 2,000 have died, most in the past two weeks.
On Friday, the United Nations agency UNRWA said most Palestinian refugees living in camps in southern Lebanon or near Beirut had fled as a result of the bombing, drawing parallels with mass displacement in Gaza.
Two peacekeepers from the United Nations interim force in Lebanon were also injured on Friday after an “explosion” near a watchtower in southern Lebanon, the force said. This volume was rocked by explosions for the second time in 48 hours. The peacekeeping mission patrols the Blue Line drawn by the United Nations between northern Israel and southern Lebanon.
Nadav Shoshani, international spokesman for the Israeli military, said they were “conducting a thorough review at the highest command level to determine the details” of the incident and accused Hizbollah of using Unifil positions as a “shield”.
Cartography by Steven Bernard
