Israeli Airstrike Levels Apartment Building in Central Beirut as Conflict With Hezbollah Widens

Jerusalem: An apparent Israeli airstrike on central Beirut has levelled an apartment building. It came after Israel hit targets across Lebanon and killed dozens of people, as Hezbollah sustained heavy blows to its command structure, including the killing of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

The early Monday airstrike — the first to hit central Beirut in nearly a year of conflict — hit a multistory residential building, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene. Videos showed ambulances and a crowd gathered near the building in a mainly Sunni district with a busy thoroughfare lined with shops.

Separately, an Israeli airstrike early Monday killed a family of four in central Gaza, Palestinian officials said.

In the past week, Israel has frequently targeted Beirut's southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence — including a major strike on Friday that killed Nasrallah — but had not hit locations near the city centre.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 105 people were killed around the country in airstrikes on Sunday. Two strikes near the southern city of Sidon, about 45 kilometres south of Beirut, killed at least 32 people, the ministry said. Separately, Israeli strikes in the northern province of Baalbek Hermel killed 21 people and wounded at least 47.

Lebanese media reported dozens of strikes in the central, eastern and western Bekaa and in the south, besides strikes on Beirut. Israel says it targets militants, but the strikes have hit buildings where civilians were living and the death toll was expected to rise.

Here is the latest: Satellite images show site of Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Satellite images analysed by The Associated Press show the site of the Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The images, taken Sunday by Planet Labs PBC, show the site just some 2 kilometres northeast of Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport.

The images show multi-story buildings at the site now cratered in the densely populated predominantly Shiite southern Beirut suburb known as Dahiyeh.

Israel said the Friday night strike targeted a meeting at an underground Hezbollah compound located beneath the towers and at least one empty lot at the site.

Israeli airstrike kills family of 4 in central Gaza DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian officials say an Israeli airstrike early Monday killed a family of four in central Gaza.

The strike hit a house in the central town of Deir al-Balah, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies.

The dead included two children and their parents, according to hospital records. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies at the hospital morgue.

Israel says it only targets militants and accuses Hamas fighters of hiding among civilians, putting them in danger. It rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.

Gaza's Health Ministry says at least 41,595 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. It does not distinguish between militants and civilians but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities.

The war began on October 7, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

Hamas says one of its commanders was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon BEIRUT — The Palestinian militant group Hamas says one of its commanders has been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon.

Fatah Sharif was killed early Monday in an airstrike on the Al-Buss refugee camp in the southern port city of Tyre, the group said in a statement. His wife, son and daughter were also killed in the strike, it said.

Sharif was a commander in Lebanon and a member of Hamas' command outside the Palestinian territories, Hamas said.

Since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, Israeli airstrikes have killed several Hamas officials in Lebanon.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Republic and is published from a syndicated feed.)