Massive explosions in Beirut after renewed Israeli airstrikes

Israeli bombings caused large explosions in Beirut, including one near the international airport during another night of airstrikes targeting Hezbollah.

The airport borders Dahieh, Hezbollah's stronghold in the capital. Clouds of smoke could be seen over the city on Friday morning.

US media reported, citing Israeli officials, that the target was Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Safieddine is widely seen as the most likely candidate to succeed Nasrallah after he was killed in an Israeli attack last week.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, 37 people were killed and 151 others injured in ground and air strikes in the last 24 hours.

Elsewhere, the Lebanese army said two of its soldiers were killed in the south of the country as Israeli forces continued their invasion against Hezbollah and ordered the evacuation of another 20 towns and villages.

The Israeli military did not comment but said its troops had killed Hezbollah fighters near the border. Hezbollah said it had attacked Israeli troops on both sides of the border.

The two deadly attacks on Lebanese army soldiers came just hours apart on Thursday, the third full day of the invasion.

In the first incident, the army said one soldier was killed and another was injured “as a result of aggression by the Israeli enemy during an evacuation and rescue operation with the Lebanese Red Cross in the village of Taybeh.”

The Red Cross said four of its volunteers were also slightly injured and that their movements were coordinated with U.N. peacekeepers.

The army said another soldier was killed in the second incident “after the Israeli enemy attacked an army post in the Bint Jbeil area.”

“Personnel at the post responded to the sources of fire,” the Lebanese army added, marking a rare involvement in a conflict in which it had not taken part.

The news came as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) urged residents of another two dozen towns and villages in the south, including the regional capital Nabatea, to leave the country immediately for their own safety.

Unlike the communities that were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday, they are all north of the Litani River, which is about 30 km (18 miles) from the border.

Before the invasion, Israel had called for Hezbollah's withdrawal to the Litani under a U.N. Security Council resolution that ended its last war in 2006.

Speaking to the BBC from Beirut, the World Food Program's country director in Lebanon, Matthew Hollingworth, described the situation there as “horrible”.

“Black smoke is billowing over the southern suburbs and we see it every morning when we come to work and we see it all day long. And there are a striking number of people who are being displaced in the city.”

“There are these cars everywhere of people who have fled the fighting in the south of the country and the southern suburbs. There’s traffic everywhere, people are sleeping outside.”

Juan Gabriel Wells, country director for the International Rescue Committee in Lebanon, said nearly half of the displaced people his organization interviewed in government-run shelters were children under 15.

Israel's latest air strikes on Beirut come 24 hours after the attack on a residential building in the center of the capital. A Hezbollah-affiliated civil defense agency also said seven of its first responders were among the nine people killed in the attack.

Lebanon's health minister later said more than 40 medics and firefighters had been killed by Israeli fire in the past three days.

The Israeli Air Force carried out airstrikes on Thursday against targets believed to belong to Hezbollah, including the group's intelligence headquarters, weapons production facilities and arms depots.

Two weeks of Israeli attacks and other attacks on Hezbollah have killed more than 1,300 people and displaced more than a million across Lebanon, according to local authorities.

Israel went on the offensive after nearly a year of cross-border hostilities sparked by the war in Gaza, saying it wanted to ensure the safe return of residents of border areas displaced by Hezbollah missile, rocket and drone attacks.

Hezbollah is a Shiite Islamist military, political and social organization that wields considerable power in Lebanon. It is classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the USA, Great Britain and other countries.

The IDF also said Thursday that its aircraft struck 200 Hezbollah “terrorist targets” in southern Lebanon and elsewhere overnight, including weapons depots and observation posts. Around 15 Hezbollah fighters were killed in the attack on the municipal building in Bint Jbeil, it said.

It was later said that a building housing three Hezbollah commanders had been destroyed in a joint air force and infantry operation.

Hezbollah said Thursday evening that its fighters repelled “failed attempts” by Israeli commandos to advance into some border villages during the day.

The group also said it had targeted “hostile gatherings” and homes across the border while continuing to fire rockets deep into northern Israel.

The IDF said more than 230 projectiles were fired into Israeli territory during the day. Most were intercepted or fell in open areas and there were no reports of injuries.

The communities along Israel's northern border fence are now a closed military zone.

Dean Sweetland, a former British soldier who moved to Israel eight years ago, is one of the few people still living on a nearly empty kibbutz within sight of the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil.

He told the BBC that his house shook several times a day from rockets and anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon, some of which were intercepted by Israeli air defenses overhead.

“We can't go on like this for another year with Hezbollah sitting on our border just waiting to do October 7th on us,” he said, referring to Hamas' deadly attack on southern Israel last year. that sparked the Gaza war.

“But my son is in the army, and do we want our children to be slaughtered where Hezbollah has been waiting for us to invade for almost 20 years?”

“It won’t be pretty,” he continued, “but if that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes.”