Israel has launched a series of strikes on Beirut, triggering widespread panic among residents in what has been described as the most violent assault on the capital since the onset of the war with Hezbollah, reports RTE.
The Israeli military announced it had carried out its “largest coordinated strike across Lebanon,” reports RTE.
Israel has maintained that the two-week truce in its conflict with Iran does not extend to Lebanon.
Lebanon’s health ministry, in an initial assessment, reported that the strikes had killed dozens of people and left hundreds more wounded, reports RTE.
“In a very serious escalation, Israeli warplanes launched a wave of simultaneous airstrikes on several Lebanese areas, resulting in, in an initial count, dozens of martyrs and hundreds of wounded,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry reiterated its call for citizens to “reduce traffic congestion, especially in the neighbourhoods of the capital, to allow priority for rescue and ambulance services,” reports RTE.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam condemned the Israeli strikes, stating they had targeted densely populated residential areas, and accused Israel of disregarding both regional and international ceasefire efforts.
Lebanon’s health ministry issued an emergency appeal for civilians to clear roads in Beirut to allow ambulances through, reports RTE.
In a statement, the ministry said it was “urgently calling on citizens to clear the way for ambulances so they can carry out their work”.
“The traffic congestion caused by the unprecedented wave of airstrikes launched by the Israeli enemy is hindering rescue efforts,” it said, reports RTE.
Successive explosions rocked the capital as smoke blanketed the skyline. A security source confirmed that one strike on a densely populated neighbourhood alone claimed the lives of at least 12 people.
Lebanon’s health ministry warned that hospitals were struggling to cope with the influx of victims, reports RTE.
The simultaneous strikes hit the city without any prior warning, causing pedestrians to flee and motorists to sound their horns in a bid to clear the roads, according to AFP journalists.
One of the strikes targeted Corniche al-Mazraa, one of the city’s main thoroughfares, reports RTE.
An AFP photographer on the ground witnessed extensive damage, buildings engulfed in flames and cars reduced to wreckage.
“A plane struck, and people started running left and right, and smoke was billowing” from the targeted building, said another witness, reports RTE.
Israel also struck Beirut’s southern suburbs and southern Lebanon, areas where Hezbollah maintains a strong presence, having issued evacuation warnings for those zones, while simultaneously carrying out strikes in the east.
Ambulances could be heard responding across the targeted areas.
Tell us your thoughts in the Facebook post and share this with your friends.
