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Some more eyewitness accounts are filtering out from central Beirut, after the Israeli strikes that killed at least 22 people.
From AFP:
In the working-class district of Basta, whose inhabitants are largely Sunni and Shiite Muslim, two old buildings of three or four floors had collapsed.
Around a kilometre away (less than a mile), a Beirut resident was still reeling from the terrifying sound of the blast.
“I’m not scared usually, but it was like an earthquake,” she said, adding that she wanted to flee the area.
Hassan Jaber, who lives in a nearby building, said he was wounded in the hand and leg.
“I went out to throw out the rubbish, opened the door of the lift and the strike hit” and he was propelled to the ground, he said.
Meanwhile, CNN reports that people could be seen overwhelmed with grief outside the American University of Beirut Medical Center, where some of the casualties of Thursday night’s strikes on the city centre were being treated.
Outside the emergency ward, an elderly woman rocked back and forth with a dazed look in her eyes.
A man came to her with terrible news: “Abbas’s son and daughter are martyrs,” he said, his hand on her shoulder. “Thank God for everything. Don’t forget to say thank God for everything.”
A few moments later, the woman burst into tears.
Two witnesses told CNN they saw an entire building collapse from one of tonight’s strikes in central Beirut, saying the structure was full of recently displaced people and residents.
“The bomb hit. And the entire building fell down,” one of the witnesses, Hassan, told CNN outside a hospital near Beirut’s Upper Basta neigborhood. “There were so many people in the building. Not just the residents but also people who were displaced from other parts of the country,” he said.
