Israeli bombings have caused several explosions in Beirut, including one near the international airport during another night of airstrikes targeting Hezbollah.
The airport is on the outskirts of Dahieh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in the capital. A lot of smoke was seen in the city on Friday morning.
American outlets citing Israeli officials reported that Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Safieddine is being eyed as a potential successor to Nasrallah after he was killed in an Israeli strike last week.
The Ministry of Health in Lebanon said that 37 people have been killed in ground and air attacks in the past 24 hours and 151 others were injured.
Elsewhere, the Lebanese army said two of its soldiers were killed in the south of the country as Israeli forces continued to attack Hezbollah and ordered 20 other towns and villages to evacuate.
The Israeli military has not commented, but said its troops killed Hezbollah fighters near the border. Hezbollah said it was targeting Israeli soldiers on both sides of the border.
The two attacks on the Lebanese army came within hours of each other on Thursday, the third full day of attacks.
In the first incident, the army said, one soldier was killed and another was wounded “due to the brutality of the Israeli enemies while evacuating people and rescuing the Red Cross of Lebanon in Taybeh village”.
The Red Cross said four of its volunteers were also slightly injured, and said its movement was coordinated with UN troops.
The army said in a second incident another soldier was killed “after the Israeli enemy targeted a military position in the Bint Jbeil area”.
“Postal workers responded with sources of fire,” the Lebanese army added, marking an unusual involvement in a conflict it was not involved in.
The news came as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told residents of a dozen other cities and towns in the south, including the regional capital Nabatieh, to leave immediately for safety.
Unlike the communities ordered to evacuate on Tuesday, they are all located north of the Litani river, which is 30 kilometers from the border.
Before the attack, Israel had demanded that Hezbollah withdraw from Litani, in accordance with a UN Security Council resolution that ended their last war in 2006.
Speaking to the BBC from Beirut, the World Food Programme’s country director in Lebanon, Matthew Hollingworth, described the situation there as “dire”.
“There is black smoke in the southern areas and we see it every morning when we come to work and we see it throughout the day. And there is a surprising number of homeless people in the city.”
“There are these cars everywhere that belong to people who fled the wars in the south of the country and the surrounding areas. There are cars everywhere, people are sleeping outside.”
Juan Gabriel Wells, the Lebanon country director of the International Rescue Committee, said that almost half of the people his organization evicted from government-run shelters were children under the age of 15.
The latest Israeli airstrike in Beirut comes 24 hours after a building in the center of the capital was hit. The Hezbollah-linked Civil Defense Agency also said seven first responders were among the nine people killed in the strike.
Lebanon’s health minister later said that more than 40 paramedics and firefighters were killed by Israeli fire in the past three days.
The Israeli Air Force carried out airstrikes on Thursday against targets it said belonged to Hezbollah, including the group’s intelligence headquarters, weapons production facilities, and weapons storage facilities.
Two weeks of Israeli strikes and other attacks targeting Hezbollah have killed more than 1,300 people across Lebanon and displaced more than a million, according to local authorities.
Israel has continued to attack after a year of unrest caused by the war in Gaza, saying it wants to ensure the safe return of border residents who were driven out by Hezbollah rockets, missiles and drones.
Hezbollah is the most powerful Shia Islamist military, political and social organization in Lebanon. It has been designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the US, the UK and other countries.
The IDF also announced on Thursday that its aircraft attacked 200 Hezbollah “terrorist sites” in southern Lebanon and other places overnight, including weapons storage facilities and observation points. About 15 Hezbollah fighters were killed when a municipal building in Bint Jbeil was hit, the statement said.
Later, it said a building housing three Hezbollah commanders was destroyed during a joint operation by the air force and infantry.
Hezbollah said on Thursday evening that its forces had “repeated failed attempts” by Israeli commandos to advance to other border areas during the day.
The group also said it was targeting “enemy camps” and homes on the other side of the border, while continuing to fire rockets into northern Israel.
The IDF said more than 230 projectiles were fired into Israeli territory during the day. Most were caught or fell in open areas, and there were no reports of injuries.
The communities that sit along Israel’s northern fence are now a closed military zone.
Dean Sweetland, a former British soldier who immigrated to Israel eight years ago, is one of the few people still living in the near-empty area near the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil.
He told the BBC that his house was shaken several times a day by rockets and anti-tank fire from Lebanon, some of which were intercepted by the Israeli air defense.
“We cannot continue this for another year, Hezbollah is sitting on our border just waiting to make October 7 against us,” he said, referring to the deadly attack by Hamas in southern Israel last year that sparked the Gaza war.
“But my son is in the army, and we want our children to be there, slaughtered, where Hezbollah has been waiting for us to come in for almost 20 years?”
“It’s not going to be pretty,” he continued, “but if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes.”
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