Israel is attacking Beirut with its biggest bombardment to date, Reuters witnesses say

Written by Maya Gebeily, Timour Azhari and Alexander Cornwell

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli airstrikes hit areas south of Beirut overnight and early on Sunday, the worst attack on the Lebanese capital since Israel stepped up its campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah last month.

At night, the explosion sent booms in Beirut and sparked a red and white light for about 30 minutes visible for several kilometers.

It was Israel's biggest attack on Beirut so far, witnesses and military analysts told local television stations.

On Sunday, fog hung over the city and debris was strewn across the streets in the southern suburbs, while smoke rose from the area.

“Last night was the most violent of all previous nights. Buildings were shaking around us and at first I thought it was an earthquake. There were many strikes – we couldn't count them all – and the sounds were deafening,” he said. Hanan Abdullah, a resident of Burj al-Barajneh in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Videos posted on social media, which Reuters could not immediately confirm, showed fresh damage to the highway that runs from Beirut airport through the southern suburbs to the city.

Israel said its air force “conducted a series of strikes on several weapons depots and terrorist infrastructure sites belonging to the terrorist organization Hezbollah in the Beirut area”.

Lebanese authorities did not immediately say what the missiles hit or what damage they caused.

This weekend's deadly bombings came shortly before an October 7 attack by the Palestinian terror group Hamas in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and captured more than 250, according to Israeli figures.

The target of Israel's airstrikes in Lebanon and its ground attacks in the south of the country is the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Iran's main ally in the region. The attack killed hundreds of people, including civilians, and displaced 1.2 million people, Lebanese officials said.

It has been days since Israel bombed the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh – considered a Hezbollah base but also home to thousands of ordinary refugees from Lebanon, Palestine and Syria – killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on September 27.

A security source in Lebanon said on Saturday, Hashem Safieddine, who is likely to take over from Nasrallah, has been out of touch since Friday, after an Israeli airstrike on Thursday near the city's airport that reportedly targeted him.

Israel continues to bomb the strike site, preventing rescuers from reaching it, Lebanese security sources said.

Hezbollah did not comment on Safieddine.

His loss will be another blow to the team and its patron Iran. Israel's strikes across the region over the past year, which have been accelerated in recent weeks, have hit Hezbollah's leadership hard.

THE WAR OF GAZA

Israel's war in Gaza, which began after an October 7 attack aimed at eliminating Hamas, another Iran-backed group, has killed nearly 42,000 people, Palestinian authorities said. The seashore is desolate.

At least 26 people were killed and 93 others were injured when Israeli warplanes attacked a mosque and a school sheltering displaced people in the Gaza Strip early Sunday, the government's media office in Gaza said.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel the day after the Oct. 7 and after Israel started bombing Gaza, it says it is acting in cooperation with the Palestinian group.

Cross-border fire continued between Israel and Hezbollah for months, but was largely limited to the Israel-Lebanon border area before the latest explosion.

Israel says it intensified Hezbollah's attacks last month so that tens of thousands of civilians can return to their homes in northern Israel, which have been attacked by the group since October 8.

Israeli authorities said on Saturday that nine Israeli soldiers had been killed in southern Lebanon so far.

In northern Israel, air raid sirens sounded on Sunday and the Israeli army said it intercepted rockets fired into Lebanese territory.

Iran has signaled that it does not seek direct war with Israel but has launched occasional responses to Israeli attacks. It fired a number of missiles at Israel on Tuesday that did little damage.

Israel has been weighing its response options.