Israel’s military has struck the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, in a dramatic escalation in a year-long period of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
The strike targeted a top Hezbollah figure and other commanders. At least 12 people were killed and 66 were wounded, Lebanese health officials told The Associated Press, nine of them sustained serious injuries.
Here’s the latest:
As night fell in Beirut, rescue teams remained on-site to comb through the rubble left behind by the Israeli strike.
Solemn crowds filed through the street in the affected area lined with mixed-use commercial-residential buildings, Reuters video shows.
The streets were illuminated by shop windows and flashing emergency lights. Relief workers, dressed in bright red and wearing large helmets, carried stretchers towards the wreckage.
Locals who spoke to Reuters described feelings of fear and unease for the future.
“We cannot continue with the country like this. We cannot say we know what will happen today,” Lebanese citizen Alain Feghali said in an Arabic-language interview. “We are not afraid for ourselves, we are afraid of the future, afraid for our children, the schools.”
Another resident, Elias Abu Nasser, expressed similar feelings.
“I am not afraid for myself, and I just want the country to get better. But as you can see, it is not getting better. The war will just keep going and they will keep bombing,” he said in Arabic.
Rescuers work at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (Hassan Ammar / The Associated Press)
At least one rocket made it through Israel’s Iron Dome defence system. It landed on a stretch of road in the country’s north.
Video from the scene shows Israeli officials blocking the road to recover what was left of the missile – a large chunk of twisted metal – which appeared to cause minor damage to the tarmac.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it killed Ibrahim Aquil, the head of Hezbollah’s operations unit and commander of the Radwan forces – a high-profile group within Hezbollah.
It also accused Hezbollah of planning an operation to infiltrate northern Israel.
Other senior Hezbollah members were also killed, according to the IDF.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the Israeli madness and arrogance that crossed all limits,” reads an Arabic post to Iran’s embassy in Lebanon’s X page.
“We reaffirm once again that such terrorist crimes will not undermine the determination and faith of the Lebanese.”
White House national security spokesman John Kirby says that if the IDF notified the U.S. of the impending attack, he wasn’t aware of it.
"I'm certainly not going to comment any more on those incidents than I already have. All I can assert to you is that there was no U.S. involvement, and that's really as far as I'm going to go," he said in a press scrum published by the AP.
"We'll let the IDF speak to their operations. I am certainly not aware of any pre-notification of those strikes. And that, of course, as you know, is not atypical."
Residents and rescuers gather at the scene of a missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (Bilal Hussein / The Associated Press)
Video published by Reuters shows a crowd gathered around a large building, where a collapsed wall reveals the structure’s interior.
The outlet is reporting the target was Hezbollah's operations commander Ibrahim Aqil, citing two security sources in Lebanon and Israeli Army Radio. One of those security sources also told the outlet Aqil was killed alongside members of Hezbollah's prominent Radwan Unit.
Meanwhile, missiles from Israel's air defense system Iron Dome left long streaks of smoke in the air as they intercepted return fire towards northern Israel after the Beirut strike.
People gather near a damaged building at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (Bilal Hussein / The Associated Press)
“This is now an open conflict against Hezbollah and southern Lebanon,” military analyst and retired Maj. Gen. David Fraser told CTV News Channel.
He says the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has demonstrated a distinct switch in strategy this week, demonstrated by “a division of 10,000 soldiers going up to the northern border with Lebanon, (and) the fact that we’ve had the attacks on Hezbollah in the last couple of days.”
As hostilities increase, so too does the risk of instigating conflicts with other nations.
“What happens if an ambassador to another country gets killed?” Fraser asked. “You cannot control these things the way you’d like to.”
He says despite worldwide condemnation of enduring strikes and counterstrikes, ceasefire negotiations are at a standstill. He criticized Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, adding “they don’t seem to be interested in finding a political solution.”
“I worry for the 100 hostages. They’re still stuck in Gaza. It’s almost like we’ve forgotten about them.”
Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept a rocket fired from Lebanon, in northern Israel, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (Leo Correa / The Associated Press)
The strike comes after 48 hours of chaos in Lebanon. Earlier this week, an apparently co-ordinated operation targeting communications devices caused them to explode simultaneously.
The incident, which has been widely attributed to Israel, killed 12, injured thousands and started countless fires.
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