Airstrike hits apartment in Beirut city centre – as minister warns Lebanon on ‘verge of catastrophe’

An apparent Israeli airstrike has hit an apartment building in central Beirut in what is believed to be the first attack in the centre of Lebanon’s capital city since the current conflict with Hezbollah began.

The residential neighbourhood in the Kola district – a major transportation hub – was hit early on Monday morning with images released by the Associated Press from the scene showing damage to buildings and emergency services gathered outside.

Palestinian militant group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – which is taking part in the fight against Israel and promotes a one-state solution to the conflict – claimed the strike killed three of its leaders.

A Lebanese civil defence official said at least one person was killed in the strike and 16 people were injured.

Lebanon ‘on verge of catastrophe’; follow Middle East latest

The Israeli military has not commented or confirmed it was behind the attack.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese health ministry claimed at least 105 people had been killed across the country in separate airstrikes on Sunday.

It claimed two attacks near the southern city of Sidon, about 28 miles south of Beirut, killed at least 32, and separate attacks in the northern province of Baalbek Hermel killed a further 21 and injured at least 47.

A further 11 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the northeastern Lebanese village of al Ain, according to Lebanon’s state news agency.

Six of the bodies were recovered but rescuers are still searching the rubble of the destroyed home for the remaining five, it added.

They are among the rough estimates from the Lebanese health ministry that say 1,000 have been killed and 6,000 wounded as a result of Israeli airstrikes in the past two weeks.

The intensifying Israeli bombardment over the past couple of weeks has killed a string of top Hezbollah officials, including its leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Medical and security sources said over the weekend that Nasrallah’s body was found “intact” in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh – where senior members of the militant group were gathered.

He was found with no direct wounds and is believed to have died from the blunt trauma of the explosion.

Hezbollah confirmed senior official Ali Karaki was also killed in Friday’s strike.

Footage from the site – a residential area of the Lebanese capital – shows a huge crater between high-rise buildings.

‘Verge of coming to catastrophe’

The number of displaced people across the country has increased from 300,000 to almost a million in a matter of hours, Nasser Yassin, Lebanon’s head of emergency disaster management, said.

He told Sky News’ special correspondent Alex Crawford that despite hundreds of shelters being opened, Lebanon is “in a very critical moment”.

“We don’t want this to collapse fully, but we are on the verge of coming to a catastrophic humanitarian situation,” he said.

Lebanon has one of the largest refugee populations per capita in the world – with 1.5 million Syrian refugees and 2,500 Palestinians – to a population of around 3.5 million.

In its first statement since Nasrallah’s death, the Lebanese military called for calm at “this dangerous and delicate stage” of the conflict.

But both Israel and Hezbollah continued to launch attacks on Sunday.

Israel also launched airstrikes against the Houthi militant group in Yemen – which is part of an Iran-aligned regional alliance, alongside Hamas and Hezbollah.

Read more:
Analysis: Is wider war in the Middle East inevitable?
The Hezbollah leaders Israel claims to have killed
Heathrow arrivals say Beirut is ‘like horror movie’

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The Houthi-run health ministry said at least four people were killed and 29 wounded in airstrikes on the country’s port of Hodeidah.

Israel claimed the strikes were a response to Houthi missile attacks.