Israel has threatened to take Lebanese land as it ramped up airstrikes in the heart of Beirut, amid growing fears that the Middle East conflict is spiralling out of control.
Israeli jets bombed the city’s busy Bachoura neighbourhood multiple times on Thursday, with the military claiming it was targeting Hezbollah infrastructure.
The latest strikes came just hours after Israel launched its heaviest night of bombing of the capital since the conflict with Hezbollah began 10 days ago. Aircraft roared above Beirut and fiery explosions lit up the sky overnight, with Israel saying it had struck nearly a dozen locations in the southern suburbs in half an hour alone.
At least 12 people were killed and 28 wounded in a separate salvo along the capital’s iconic waterfront, where displaced families that had been forced to flee their homes were sleeping rough.
It followed a hefty barrage of rockets from Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, which said it had launched dozens of rockets and drones towards northern Israel as part of a “series of operations”.
Lebanese president Joseph Aoun has sought urgent talks with Israel to halt the strikes and the growing conflict. More than 810,000 people in Lebanon have already been uprooted, a quarter of them children, and 630 have been killed.
But Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, announced on Thursday that after Hezbollah’s attacks, the army would expand its operations into Lebanon, threatening further escalation.
The military later doubled the zone Israel said residents should leave in the south of the country, forcing residents to move up to the Zahrani River. It also ordered an evacuation of a neighbourhood in central Beirut, before pounding it with airstrikes.
“I warned the Lebanese president that if the Lebanese government does not know how to control the territory and prevent Hezbollah from threatening the northern settlements and firing at Israel, we will take the territory and do it ourselves,” Mr Katz said.
Israel’s latest assault came after Dr Hanan Balkhy, director of the UN health agency, warned of an “unprecedented, long-lasting impact” on the region if the hostilities continue to grow.
“It can spin out of control and lead to even more damage through a chemical, nuclear or radiological war, which will have an unprecedented, long-lasting impact on the environment, and on people, that will go beyond the countries involved,” Dr Balkhy told The Independent.
In Dahiyeh – in the south of Beirut – smoke and dust rose above piles of snarled rebar and concrete – all that was left of a building in the crowded neighbourhood, which is part of the area under sweeping Israeli evacuation orders.
Fatima, a mother of six and a Syrian refugee, was sleeping under a tarpaulin just metres away from the strike on Beirut’s waterfront. The 48-year-old told The Independent her family had been forced to camp on the streets for the past week after fleeing Dahiyeh, as they had nowhere to go and no money.
“First, we heard the drones circling so low that it was deafening. And that is when they bombed twice in seconds,” she said, breaking into tears. “There were bodies thrown in the air; we saw severed limbs. One man, a displaced Syrian who I know, was on the ground. Shrapnel had cut him up. There was so much blood.
“All the people were screaming and were terrified. There was so much blood and smoke and fire. It lit up the skies.”
On Beirut’s waterfront, Mohamed, a Lebanese father living in his car after he was displaced from the region along the border with Israel, said that many fear there is no end in sight.
“The bombing was deafening,” he said of the latest attacks. “We have no idea when this is going to end.”
Lebanon was dragged into the regional conflict earlier this month when Hezbollah, Iran’s ally, fired at Israel after massive strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader.
The Israeli military said it had fired 200 munitions from the air and sea during Wednesday night’s raid, targeting Hezbollah infrastructure and headquarters as well as leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Lebanese unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Later in the day, the military bombed two buildings in heart of Beirut that Israel said were part of Hezbollah infrastructure.
Since 2 March, Israel has killed 100 members of Hezbollah and its linked groups as well as 60 command and control centres, it said. Hezbollah said earlier it had fired a “salvo of rockets” at northern Israel and a squadron of drones, promising further strikes.
In a statement, the group said “the intense confrontation today opens a new path”, and that it marked “the beginning of a countdown toward liberation from domination and the rise of a serious determination to shape our own destiny”.
The concern now is that even if US president Donald Trump winds down his operations in Iran, the war between Israel and Hezbollah has only just begun.
The wider conflict showed no signs of calming, with further developments across the region on Thursday. Iran issued a new statement, which it claimed was from the supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, in which it threatened to launch new attacks on US bases in the region and “avenge the blood of the martyrs”.
Mr Trump followed the latest threats from Tehran by saying he would “stop an evil empire”, and repeated his warning that Iran would not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
Elsewhere in the region, the Gulf has become a growing hotspot for military strikes, sending oil prices soaring again. Two tankers were set ablaze by hits from suspected Iranian boats carrying explosives, while a container ship was struck by an unknown projectile near the UAE.
Additional reporting by Rana Najjar
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