BEIRUT: An Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building Monday in Beirut in the first apparent attack inside the city since the eruption of cross-border fighting between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah nearly a year ago.
A Palestinian militant group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said Monday’s strike killed at least three of its members.
Israel’s military did not mention strikes in the area early Monday, but said it was conducting aerial attacks in southern and eastern Lebanon against Hezbollah targets.
Israeli strikes have hit the edges of Beirut, including one Friday that killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
That attack further raised fears of a widening regional conflict as Israel also battles Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas said Monday an Israeli strike on the Al-Buss refugee camp in the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre killed its leader in Lebanon along with his wife and two children.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot was in Lebanon Monday on a mission to try to contain the situation. After arriving late Sunday, Barrot told Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati that French sought an immediate halt to Israeli strikes in Lebanon.
Saudi Arabia on Monday expressed “great concern” about the situation in Lebanon and said Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity should be respected.
U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters late Sunday that he would be speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Asked if an all-out war can be avoided, Biden said, “It has to be.”
Lebanon’s Health Ministry says more than 1,000 people have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks. The count does not include a breakdown of how many of the dead are militants and civilians. In addition, the Lebanese government says around 250,000 people are staying in shelters after fleeing their homes to escape the fighting.
The fighting has killed 49 people in Israel and displaced tens of thousands of people near the border.
Asked about the recent events in the region, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told ABC’s This Week that “Israel has a right and a responsibility to eliminate this threat to their people and to their land.”
“At the same time, we believe that we do need to look for ways to deescalate the tensions,” he added.
Along with Nasrallah and other Hezbollah leaders, Israel killed the deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran’s foreign minister said Nasrallah’s death “will not go unanswered,” and Tehran declared five days of mourning for him.
Israeli analysts say they expect some kind of response to the killing of Nasrallah, but it could also be directed at Israeli or Jewish targets abroad.
Colonel Miri Eisen, the director of the International Institute for Counter Terrorism in Israel and an expert on Hezbollah, mentioned the Iran-backed Hezbollah attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 that killed 29 people as an example.
(VOA)
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