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Israel carried out an air strike on the Mar Elias district of west Beirut on Sunday night, killing two people in a rare attack on a densely populated area of the city.
The target site was just metres away from two popular chocolate and sweets shops that are often crowded with customers.
It came hours after another strike on Beirut’s Ras al-Nabaa area killed four people including Hezbollah’s media relations chief Mohammed Afif.
Israel has been pounding Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut’s southern suburbs since escalating its conflict with the militant group in September, but Sunday’s attack on Mar Elias was the first time the area has been hit.
The bustling street where the attack took place is lined with clothes shops and small restaurants.
“I can hear the ambulances now. The sound of the explosion was so loud, I felt I was going deaf for a moment,” Hana, a local resident, told The National. “I walked through the area that was hit minutes before it happened. I went to check on my aunt who lives nearby, and now I am afraid to go back home.”
The strike hit a company named Madi Technology, Lebanon’s official National News Agency said. It sparked a large fire in the building. Israel had issued no warning of the attack and did not immediately say what it was bombing.
The earlier strike on Sunday in the Ras al-Nabaa district was confirmed by both Israel and Hezbollah, which said its media relations chief was among the dead.
The group described their spokesman as “a great martyr on the road to Jerusalem”, an expression commonly used to describe members killed by Israel.
In addition to the four dead, the attack wounded 14 other people, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
Israel has rarely targeted senior Hezbollah personnel who do not have clear military roles, with its air strikes mostly aimed at Beirut’s southern suburbs where the group has its heaviest presence.
Israel’s military said late on Sunday that it had “eliminated” Mr Afif. Iran, which backs Hezbollah, condemned the killing as an “aggressive and terrorist act”, saying it was another attempt “to silence those exposing crimes in Palestine and Lebanon”.
Lebanon’s Education Minister Abbas Halabi said schools and higher education institutions in the Beirut area would be closed for two days after the attacks.
Elsewhere in the country, Israeli strikes on the southern Tyre region killed 11 people and wounded 48 on Sunday, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The Israeli military said it had struck “more than 200 targets” since Saturday morning, according to AFP.