At least 49 people killed in Israeli air strikes in central Beirut and Gaza

Two sites were hit in central Beirut on Thursday evening, killing at least 22 people and wounding dozens more, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

The ministry said the strikes badly damaged a residential building and caused another to completely collapse.

An Associated Press photographer in the neighbourhood of Ras al-Nabaa said an air strike appeared to have hit the lower half of an eight-storey apartment building, setting off a series of loud explosions.

The second Israeli strike, in the western area of Burj Abi Haidar, collapsed an entire building which was engulfed in flames.

The Israeli military, which has struck Hezbollah targets in the densely populated southern suburbs many times in recent weeks, rarely attacks inside the Lebanese capital, but Israel has broadened its campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

Israeli strikes have been far more common in Beirut’s tightly packed southern suburbs, where Hezbollah bases many operations.

Recent Israeli air strikes in neighbourhoods adjoining Beirut have killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and other senior commanders.

The fighting has boiled over into all-out war in recent weeks, with Israel carrying out waves of heavy strikes across Lebanon and launching a ground invasion. Hezbollah has expanded its rocket fire to more populated areas deeper inside Israel, causing few casualties but disrupting daily life.

Earlier, an Israeli strike hit a school sheltering displaced people in central Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said. The Israeli military said it targeted Palestinian militants, but people sheltering there said the strike hit a meeting of aid workers.

The strike in the city of Deir al-Balah killed 27 people, including a child and seven women, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

The Israeli military said it targeted a militant command and control centre inside the school, without providing evidence. Israel has repeatedly attacked schools that were turned into shelters in Gaza, accusing militants of taking cover in them.

Witnesses said the strike occurred while school managers were meeting representatives of an aid group in a room normally used by Hamas-run police who provide security. They said there were no police in the room at the time.

The Palestinian branch of Terre des Hommes, a Swiss aid group, said in a statement that members of one of its children’s health teams were killed in the strike.

“There were no militants. There was no Hamas,” said Iftikhar Hamouda, who had fled from northern Gaza earlier in the war.

“We headed to tents. They bombed the tents. In the streets, they bombed us. In the markets, they bombed us. In the schools, they bombed us. Where should we go?”

Hamas has continued to launch attacks on Israeli forces more than a year after the Palestinian militants’ October 7 attack on southern Israel that ignited the war.

The militants stormed into Israel in that attack, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. They are still holding around 100 captives, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities.

The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.

Meanwhile in southern Lebanon, the UN peacekeeping force said an Israeli tank fired on its headquarters in the town of Naqoura, hitting an observation tower and wounding two peacekeepers.

The attack drew widespread condemnation and prompted the Italian Defence Ministry to summon Israel’s ambassador in protest.

The UN peacekeeping mission known as Unifil said in a statement that its headquarters and nearby positions “have been repeatedly hit”. It said the Israeli army also fired on a nearby bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering, damaging vehicles and a communication system. It said an Israeli drone was seen flying to the bunker’s entrance.

The Israeli military acknowledged opening fire at a UN base in southern Lebanon and said it had ordered the peacekeepers to “remain in protected spaces”.

Unifil, which has more than 10,000 peacekeepers from dozens of countries, was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion. The United Nations expanded its mission after the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, allowing peacekeepers to patrol a buffer zone set up along the border.

Israel accuses Hezbollah of establishing militant infrastructure along the border in violation of the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. It has warned people to evacuate from dozens of communities in southern Lebanon, many of which are outside the buffer zone.

The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, sharply condemned Israeli strikes that hit Unifil positions as “an inadmissible act, for which there is no justification”.

In Italy, which has about 1,000 soldiers deployed as part of Unifil, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said her government formally protested to Israeli authorities. Italian defence minister Guido Crosetto went further, claiming Israel deliberately targeted the Unifil base in strikes that “could constitute war crimes”.

Before the Beirut strikes, Lebanon’s crisis response unit said Israeli shellfire and air strikes over the past 24 hours had killed 28 people and wounded 113, bringing the total to 2,169 killed and 10,212 wounded in Lebanon since the war erupted last October.

At least four people were killed Thursday in the eastern Bekaa Valley, Lebanese health authorities said.

Hezbollah attacks have killed 28 civilians in northern Israel since the war began, as well as 39 Israeli soldiers, including in northern Israel since last October and in southern Lebanon since Israel’s invasion.

Hezbollah kept up rocket fire into Israel on Thursday, setting off air raid sirens in parts of northern Israel. Several drones heading toward Israel were intercepted, the military said.