Israel strikes Beirut southern suburb ahead of crucial Washington talks

This is a locator map for Lebanon with its capital, Beirut. (AP Photo)

BEIRUT — Israel’s air force carried out an airstrike on a southern suburb of the capital, Beirut, Thursday afternoon, the Israeli military said, further straining a fragile ceasefire a day ahead of crucial negotiations in Washington.

The strike hit an apartment building but it was not immediately clear who might have been targeted. Videos from the suburb of Choueifat, close to Beirut’s international airport, showed white smoke billowing from a residential neighborhood.

Tensions have been escalating in southern Lebanon, where Israeli troops have crossed the Litani River over the past days and issued a warning for residents to leave much of the area.

Israel in recent days has widened its attacks on Lebanon, some of the deadliest days since a Washington-brokered ceasefire agreement went into effect on April 17.

This was the first attack close to the Lebanese capital since May 6, where an Israeli strike killed a military official with Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces in another southern Beirut suburb.

Overnight, the Israeli military pounded the coastal city of Tyre, Lebanon’s fourth-largest city, killing at least 14 people across the south of the country in its ongoing military escalation against the Hezbollah group ahead of the Washington talks.

Among those killed in the flurry of strikes were five women and children and a Lebanese soldier. Dozens of others were wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry and the state-run National News Agency.

An Israeli soldier meanwhile was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack in northern Israel, the Israeli military said.

Attacks increase ahead of Washington talks

The intensification comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an expansion in the Israeli military’s attacks in Lebanon, apparently sparked by Hezbollah’s use of fiber-optic exploding drones that have struck Israeli troops in Lebanon and reached some of Israel’s northern border towns. The Israeli military said it has launched hundreds of attacks targeting what they said were Hezbollah military assets.

Lebanese and Israeli military officials are set to hold their first security talks on Friday in the U.S. capital. The talks have extended a nominal ceasefire that went into effect April 17, although the attacks have since intensified, while largely sparing Beirut.

Hezbollah has dismissed the talks and instead endorsed its key ally Iran, which has made ending the war in Lebanon a condition for its own talks with Washington brokered by Pakistan.

Before the attacks on Thursday, Israeli military Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued warnings to residents of eight buildings in Tyre, along the Mediterranean, and in surrounding neighbourhoods. Many people have fled the area.

Further north in the city of Sidon, an Israeli drone struck an apartment building where some displaced families lived, killing five people and wounding 21 others, among them five children. Among the killed was Hossan Zeidan who once was a correspondent for Iran’s Arabic-language al-Aalam television.

Mohammad Al-Gharbi, who lived across the street from the building in Sidon, woke to the sound of the explosion.

“I was in my room when part of the wall and shattered glass fell on me, and everything was thrown into chaos,” he said. “This building that was hit had six apartments occupied by poor families who had fled from the south to escape the attacks there, only to be hit here.”

In the nearby coastal town of Adloun, an Israeli drone struck a car with a family that was fleeing, killing six people, of which four were two children and their parents, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Another drone strike that came without warning killed two people on a motorcycle near Tyre. The target of the attack was not immediately clear, NNA reported.

Elsewhere near the city of Nabatiyeh, the Lebanese military said a soldier was killed in an Israeli drone strike while he was riding his motorcycle.

Hezbollah attacks targets Israeli forces that have crossed the Litani River

The Israeli military said Thursday that a soldier in northern Israel was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack and two reservists were wounded.

Hezbollah has claimed dozens of drone and rocket attacks that it says targeted Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and northern Israel. The group said Thursday it has launched several attacks on Israeli troops and tanks that have crossed the Litani River into the town of Zawtar al-Sharqieh near Nabatiyeh, as close-range fighting continues.

Over one million people in Lebanon have been displaced by the war between Israel and Hezbollah, which was sparked when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel on March 2 in solidarity with Iran, two days after the Iran war began.

At least 3,269 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since the start of the war, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, with over 9,800 wounded.

According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 23 Israeli soldiers and a defence contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon and two civilians have been killed in northern Israel, the vast majority by drones.

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Associated Press journalists Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, contributed to this report.

Kareem Chehayeb, The Associated Press