Key points
- Heavy attacks rocked southern Beirut as Israel expanded its bombing.
- Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s potential successor is reportedly unattainable.
- Israel carried out its first attack on Saturday in the northern city of Tripoli.
Massive back-to-back attacks hit Beirut’s southern suburbs late Saturday into Sunday, eyewitnesses told Reuters, sending explosions across the city and setting off red and white flashes for nearly 30 minutes visible from several kilometers away.
“Israeli enemy warplanes carried out four very violent attacks in the southern suburbs (of Beirut) and one attack in the Chweifat area,” with ambulances rushing to the scene, Lebanon’s national news agency said.
The attacks came after days of Israeli bombing of Beirut suburbs considered strongholds of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah armed group, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and possibly his potential successor.
Lebanon’s official national news agency said Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut was hit by more than 30 attacks, which were heard across the city. The targets included a gas station.
The Israeli military said it had “conducted a series of attacks on a number of weapons storage facilities” and infrastructure, stressing that it had taken “numerous measures to mitigate the risk of harming civilians”.
A Lebanese security source said Saturday that Hashem Safieddine, the potential successor, had not been in contact since Friday, after an Israeli airstrike near the city’s international airport reportedly targeted him.
The Israeli military said it eliminated Nasrallah in an attack on the group’s central command headquarters in Beirut on September 27. Hezbollah confirmed that it had been killed.
Lebanese security sources said Israeli attacks since Friday in Dahiyeh, a residential area and Hezbollah stronghold south of central Beirut, had prevented rescuers from searching the site of Thursday night’s attack.
Hezbollah has so far made no comment on Safieddine.
Its loss would be another blow to the group and its patron, Iran. Israeli attacks across the region last year, which sharply accelerated in recent weeks, have decimated Hezbollah’s leadership.
Israel has expanded its actions in Lebanon. It carried out its first attack in the northern city of Tripoli on Saturday, a Lebanese security official said, and Israeli troops launched raids in the south.
At least eight attacks rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs on Saturday evening local time, including near the airport, according to Reuters witnesses, after the Israeli army warned some residents to flee.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Saturday that Israel killed 440 Hezbollah fighters in its ground operations in southern Lebanon and destroyed 2,000 Hezbollah targets. Hezbollah has not released the death toll.
Israel says it has stepped up its attack against Hezbollah to allow the safe return of tens of thousands of citizens to homes in northern Israel that have been bombed by the group since October 8 last year.
Israeli authorities reported on Saturday that nine Israeli soldiers have been killed so far in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli assault also killed hundreds of ordinary Lebanese, Lebanese officials say .
The violence came as the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel approached, in which 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
The subsequent Israeli attack on Gaza killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and forced nearly the entire enclave’s population of 2.3 million to flee.
The impact on civilians sparked widespread international protests. as the anniversary approaches.
Iran, which supports both Hezbollah and Hamas, and which has lost key commanders of its elite Revolutionary Guards Corps to Israeli airstrikes this year, fired ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday. The strikes did little damage.
Israel has been weighing options for its response.
Healthcare system “on the verge of collapse”
On Saturday, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, Imran Riza, warned of the impact of the attacks on health care, as Israel strikes what it believes are Hezbollah targets.
“In recent days we have witnessed an alarming increase in attacks against the healthcare system” in Lebanon, Riza said in a statement on X.
“Health workers are paying the ultimate price with their lives. The health system is on the verge of collapse,” he warned.
The day before, at least four hospitals in Lebanon had announced the suspension of services due to ongoing Israeli bombing.
