Israel escalates Beirut bombing, accused of killing 73 in Gaza strike

JERUSALEM: Fighting raged on two fronts Sunday (Oct 20) as Israel targeted what it said was a Hezbollah “command centre” in the Lebanese capital, while in Gaza rescuers reported 73 people killed in a single air strike.
The strikes on Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Iran-backed group of attempting to assassinate him by targeting his residence.
It also came as Israelis marked the week-long Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said Israel’s strikes on the capital hit a residential building in South Beirut’s Haret Hreik area near a mosque and a hospital.
The Israeli military said it hit the “command centre of Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters” and underground weapons facility in Beirut and that it killed three Hezbollah militants in other strikes.
On Saturday night the military had similarly reported striking weapons stores and a “Hezbollah intelligence headquarters” in South Beirut.
About 70 projectiles were fired from Lebanon on Sunday and crossed into Israel within a matter of minutes, the military said, adding it intercepted some of them.
Illustrating the intensity of the fighting, NNA later reported 14 Israeli strikes in the space of 15 minutes on a single border village, Khiam.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told troops on Sunday that the military was stepping up its strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon and “destroying them in places that Hezbollah planned to use as launchpads for attacks against Israel”.
The Lebanese army, which is not fighting in the war, said three of its soldiers were killed in an Israeli strike on their vehicle in southern Lebanon.
In Gaza, the civil defence agency said an Israeli air strike on a residential area killed at least 73 Palestinians in Beit Lahia in the territory’s north.
“Our civil defence crews recovered 73 martyrs and a large number of wounded as a result of the Israeli air force targeting a residential area … in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza,” said agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
At Kamal Adwan Hospital, which was flooded with wounded from the strike, many patients had to be treated on the floor while nearby the dead were wrapped in white burial shrouds and placed in neat rows where relatives gathered to grieve.
The Israeli military said it struck a “Hamas terror target” in Beit Lahia. It added that the toll figures given by Gaza authorities “do not align” with the information it possessed.
The Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation “condemned the strike in the strongest terms” and called Israel’s actions in Gaza a “stain on the conscience of humanity”.
In southern Lebanon, NNA later said Israeli strikes had targeted dozens of locations, including the city of Nabatiyeh for the third time this week.
It also reported that an Israeli strike hit a centre for rescue workers affiliated with Hezbollah in Deir Al-Zahrani in southern Lebanon, partially destroying it.
The Israeli military said it “struck and eliminated over 65 Hezbollah terrorists … and struck dozens of Hezbollah terror targets” in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah itself said on Sunday it had fired various rocket barrages at Israel, including a “salvo” directed at “the city of Haifa”, and at three Israeli military bases.
It also said it had fired rockets at Israeli troops in the vicinity of two border villages, Markaba and Adaisseh. NNA alleged Israeli forces had used explosives to blow up buildings there and in a third village, Rab El Thalathine.
On Saturday, Netanyahu’s office said a drone was launched towards his residence in the central town of Caesarea but he and his wife were away and there were no casualties.
“The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake,” the prime minister said.
The Lebanese group, armed and financed by Iran, did not acknowledge the attack, but late on Saturday Tehran’s mission to the United Nations said “this action was taken” by Hezbollah.
Since its beginning last month, the Israel-Hezbollah war has killed at least 1,454 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.
Hamas, Hezbollah and allied Iran-backed groups in the region have vowed to keep fighting after Israeli troops on Wednesday killed the Palestinian movement’s leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza.
The war was sparked by the unprecedented Hamas attack last year that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Israel’s campaign to crush Hamas and bring back hostages held there has killed 42,603 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN considers reliable.
Israel, vowing to stop Hamas militants from regrouping in northern Gaza, launched a major air and ground assault on October 6, tightening its siege on the war-battered area and sending tens of thousands of people fleeing.
Civil defence spokesman Bassal said his crews recovered more than 400 bodies from “targeted areas in the northern Gaza Strip”, including Jabalia and its refugee camp, since Israel’s operation began.
“We are now trapped with no food, water or medicine, facing starvation amid the rubble and destruction,” said Ahmad Saleh, 36, from the Al-Tawbah area in northern Gaza.  
“The situation gets worse every day and we are terrified, wondering when our turn will come”.
Washington warned last week it could withhold some of its billions of dollars in military assistance to Israel unless aid deliveries to Gaza are improved within 30 days.