Israel hits building in Beirut’s south suburbs

Israel’s air force conducted a large strike on a building in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital yesterday, a Reuters reporter said, the first heavy bombardment there since a truce deal in November ended a war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel’s military said it hit a drone storage facility in the area belonging to Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

The strike, which was heard across Beirut and produced a large column of black smoke, followed an evacuation order by the Israeli military for the neighbourhood and three smaller targeted drone strikes on the building intended as warning shots, security sources told Reuters.

The evacuation order sent residents of the area into a panic, rushing to escape on foot as traffic clogged the streets out of the area, Reuters reporters in the area said.

Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold known as Dahiyeh, were pounded last year by Israeli strikes that killed many of the group’s top leaders, including its powerful chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a September air attack.

A US-brokered truce in November put an end to the fighting and mandated that southern Lebanon be free of Hezbollah fighters and weapons, that Lebanese troops deploy to the area and that Israeli ground troops withdraw from the zone.

But the truce has been shaken over the last week by two cases of outgoing fire from southern Lebanon – several rockets fired on March 22 and another set fired yesterday morning.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the Lebanese government bore direct responsibility for the attack and said that as long as there was no peace in Galilee “there will be no peace in Beirut either.”

Hezbollah denied links to either attack. No other group has claimed responsibility.

But Israel’s statement confirming its raid on Dahiyeh said that the yesterday morning’s rocket fire “constitutes a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon and a direct threat to the citizens of the State of Israel.”

It added that the Lebanese state bears responsibility for upholding the agreement.

Israel also bombarded Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon yesterday after intercepting the incoming rocket fire, the Israeli military said.

Israel has vowed a strong response to any threats to its security, prompting fears that last year’s conflict – which displaced more than 1.3 million people in Lebanon and destroyed much of the country’s south – could resume.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in Paris to meet his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, said in a written statement from France that the onus was on the international community to “put an end to these attacks and force Israel to abide by the agreement, just as Lebanon is committed to it.”

The United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said the exchange of fire across the southern border was “deeply concerning.”