The death toll from Israeli airstrikes in central Beirut this evening reached 18. 92 people were injured, the Lebanese health ministry said, as quoted by DPA.
The agency noted that this was Israel’s third attack in central Beirut since the start of its campaign against the Lebanese Hezbollah movement last month.
An Associated Press photographer on the scene said the lower half of an eight-story apartment building was hit, where explosions could be heard. A large number of ambulances arrived at the scene of the accident, BTA reported.
The aim of the attack was to eliminate a senior figure from the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, a representative of the Lebanese security forces said earlier, quoted by Reuters. It is not clear if the person in question was among those killed.
In the past 24 hours, Lebanon’s crisis response unit reported that 28 people were killed and 113 wounded in Israeli bombings, bringing the total number of people killed in Lebanon since the start of the war in October last year to 2,169 and 10 injured. 212.
Since the start of the war, Hezbollah attacks have killed 28 civilians in northern Israel, as well as 39 Israeli soldiers.