At least 20 killed in Israeli attack in central Beirut

An Israeli air strike has killed 20 people in central Beirut and 13 others were killed in attacks in eastern Lebanon, according to the Ministry of Public Health, as Israel presses its offensive against the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

Eight of the victims, four of them children, were killed in a strike on the village of Chimstar and five people died in an attack on the village of Bodai, the ministry said on Saturday. Both villages are in the Baalbek district.

Earlier, Israeli missiles flattened a residential building in a densely populated area in the heart of Beirut, state media reported.

At least 20 people were killed and 66 others wounded in the Beirut attack, the Health Ministry said.

Volunteers and rescue crew were looking for survivors as bulldozers and heavy equipment dug through the debris.

“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-storey residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in the Basta area,” the National News Agency (NNA) reported.

Reporting from Beirut, Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi said the powerful series of strikes caused extensive damage to blocks of flats surrounding the destroyed building.

“It marks at least the fourth Israeli strike this week carried out in central Beirut,” he said, adding that it fits a pattern of “multiple strikes, no warning, on an area that is densely populated with missiles meant to penetrate deeply”.

The blasts shook Beirut at about 4am (02:00 GMT), with security sources saying at least four bombs were dropped in the attack.

Rescue crews and paramedics were still at the site of the attack.

Most of the Israeli military’s attacks on Beirut have targeted the southern suburbs, which are known as a stronghold of support for Hezbollah.

On Sunday, an Israeli air strike killed Hezbollah’s spokesman Mohammad Afif in the Ras al-Nabaa district of central Beirut, while attacks last Friday in southern Beirut demolished an 11-storey building.

Forced displacement

The Israeli air force also struck Hezbollah targets in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Israeli military said. In a statement on actions on Saturday, it did not mention the strike on central Beirut.

The Israeli military earlier issued new forced displacement orders for residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut in Al-Hadath, Choueifat, and el-Aamroussieh.

Israel does not always issue warnings before it carries out attacks – in both Lebanon and Gaza – but often does mere minutes before a strike. Many of these orders have come in the middle of the night when residents are sleeping, or the instructions have been misleading.

Separately, at least five people were killed and two wounded in an Israeli strike on Roum village in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese state news agency.

On Friday, the Ministry of Public Health said Israeli attacks in the south of the country killed five healthcare workers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said 226 health workers and patients have been killed in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah began exchanging fire in October last year.

At least 3,645 people have been killed and 15,355 wounded in Israeli attacks in Lebanon since the war on Gaza began.