Israel’s military said it struck Iranian commanders in the Lebanese capital early on Sunday, expanding the scope of strikes to the heart of Beirut after days of strikes that have left nearly 400 people dead.
The drone strike was the first within the city limits of Lebanon’s capital since Israel-Hezbollah hostilities resumed last week, and came amid heavy bombardment on Beirut’s southern suburbs and the country’s south and east.
Israel said it targeted key commanders of Iran’s elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards but did not name them.
“The commanders of the Quds Force’s Lebanon Corps operated to advance terror attacks against the state of Israel and its civilians, while operating simultaneously for the IRGC in Iran,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
Four people killed in latest strike: Lebanon
Lebanon says four people were killed in the strike, part of a rapidly rising death toll that has reached 394 people, the health ministry said on Sunday, including at least 83 children and 42 women.
Lebanon’s health ministry does not otherwise distinguish between civilians and military personnel.
Israel’s military has so far killed about 200 Hezbollah militants, spokesman Nadav Shoshani said in an online briefing. Hezbollah has not published a toll for its fighters.
Lebanon was pulled into the widening U.S.-Israel war with Iran on Monday after the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah fired into Israel. Israel responded with heavy strikes across southern and eastern Lebanon and near Beirut.
Deadliest recent strikes were in eastern Lebanon
Some of the deadliest bombardment took place in the last two days in eastern Lebanon, when 41 people were killed during a rare Israeli airborne raid deep into Lebanese territory.
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The Raouche neighbourhood on Beirut’s seafront is typically a tourist attraction, but in recent days has hosted people displaced by strikes, some of whom stayed at the Ramada hotel.
The strike appeared to hit a corner suite on the hotel’s fourth floor. A Reuters reporter observed the windows of the suite were shattered and surrounding facade blackened.
Ten people were also injured in the attack on Beirut’s Raouche area, the Lebanese health ministry said.
Khalil Abou Mohammad was staying in a building across the street after being displaced earlier this week.
His three children, who were wounded by the force of the strike and were being treated at a nearby hospital, would need surgery, he said as he showed Reuters bloodstained bed covers.
“We came to stay here, and as you can see, we were sleeping at 3:30 (a.m.) and the strike hit,” Abou Mohammad told Reuters.
Israel warns Iranian officials in Lebanon
Last week, Israel said it had killed the commander of Iran’s Quds Force in Lebanon, Daoud Ali Zadeh, in a strike in Tehran.
It said a strike on Beirut’s suburbs had killed Reza Khuza’i, whom it said was head of Hezbollah’s weapons build-up and chief of staff of the Quds Force’s Lebanon Corps.
Israel has warned any representatives of Iran in Lebanon to leave immediately or risk being targeted, and struck an area near the Iranian embassy in Lebanon earlier this week.
Dozens of Iranian nationals have left in recent days, and the Lebanese government has ordered authorities to arrest and deport any Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon, though it was unclear if they had done so.
Senior Hezbollah official Mahmoud Qmati has denied that Iranian forces are on the ground in Lebanon.
Pope Leo urges end to bombing, calls for dialogue
Pope Leo said on Sunday that deeply troubling news continued to arrive from Iran and across the Middle East, urging an end to the violence and renewed efforts to open space for dialogue.
As fighting escalated on the ninth day of the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran, the first U.S. pope warned that the conflict was fuelling fear and hatred and raised concerns that it could spread further.
“Alongside the episodes of violence and devastation and the widespread climate of hatred and fear, there is also growing concern that the conflict could spread and that other countries in the region, including dear Lebanon, could once again sink into instability,” Leo said at the Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square.
“Let us raise our humble prayer to the Lord that the roar of bombs may cease, that weapons may fall silent, and that space may be opened for dialogue in which the voices of peoples can be heard”, he added.
The Vatican’s top diplomat warned on Wednesday that the U.S.-Israeli strikes undermined international law and said nations did not have a right to launch “preventive wars”, an unusually direct criticism of the military campaign.
–Reporting by Laila Bassam, Ahmed Kerdi and Hatem Maher; Writing by Maya Gebeily; Editing by Franklin Paul, Diane Craft and Bernadette Baum