Lebanon’s health ministry said 11 people were killed and 63 injured, in a provisional count.

Lebanese army soldiers look on as rescuers remove the body of a victim extracted from the rubble of a leveled building, following an overnight Israeli airstrike that targeted Beirut’s Basta neighborhood on November 23, 2024.

An Israeli air strike in central Beirut killed at least 11 people early Saturday, November 23, bringing down a residential building and jolting residents across the city out of bed as Israel kept up its air campaign against Hezbollah. The attack was followed by others in the city’s southern suburbs after calls by Israel’s military to evacuate the area.

Rescue operations were underway in the city centre on Saturday morning, with an excavator removing the rubble of the eight-storey building, and a fire truck and civil defence rescuers stationed nearby as people gathered around the site.

The Israeli strike in the working-class Basta neighbourhood killed at least 11 people and wounded 63, Lebanon’s health ministry said, adding it had also left behind “a large amount of body parts that are being identified.”

“The final death toll will be determined after DNA tests are carried out,” the ministry said in a statement. The state-run National News Agency said Israeli jets had launched six missiles at the structure, causing “widespread destruction in buildings” nearby.

The predawn attack in Basta was not preceded by an evacuation warning from Israel’s military. Similar strikes carried out without warning outside of Hezbollah’s traditional bastions have tended to target high-level members.

The Israeli military said it had struck Hezbollah targets in the city’s southern suburbs including “several Hezbollah command centres.”

Another strike hit the neighbourhood of Hadath in Beirut’s southern suburbs, which are a stronghold of Hezbollah.

Israel stepped up its campaign against the Iran-backed group in late September, targeting areas where it holds sway in the country’s east, south and south Beirut, and later sending in ground troops after nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire.

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Lebanon’s health ministry says at least 3,645 people have been killed since October 2023, when Hezbollah initiated cross-border clashes with Israel in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas over the Gaza war. Most of the deaths have been since September this year.

Le Monde with AFP

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