BEIRUT –  Israel has resumed air strikes on Beirut despite objections from the United States over the way it is conducting its campaign in Lebanon. Israeli military jets targeted the capital early on Wednesday for the first time since October 10. Three strikes were reported to have hit the southern suburbs of the city.

The attack came despite Washington having expressed concern over the scope of Israeli attacks on Beirut. At the same time, the US continues to support Israel’s wars in Lebanon and Gaza, in which it says it aims to destroy Hezbollah and Hamas. The Israeli military stated on social media that Wednesday’s strikes targeted “combat equipment that was stored inside an underground warehouse”. A warning had been issued earlier that an attack on the Dahiyeh suburb was imminent, with residents warned to flee the vicinity of a building marked on a map.

According to Al Jazeera reporters in Beirut, three strikes were heard at about 6:50am in the Dahiyeh area. The number of casualties remains unclear.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from Hasbaiyya to the south, suggested that the damage resulting from the strikes “doesn’t really suggest that it was an arms dump” that was hit.

Amnesty International and others have said that warnings from the Israeli military are often issued too late, to allow people to escape and do not exonerate Israel from responsibility for civilian casualties.

The resumption of strikes on Beirut came shortly after a spokesperson for the US government expressed concern over the conduct of Israel’s military campaigns in Lebanon and Gaza, using stronger language than he had previously.

“When it comes to the scope and nature of the bombing campaign that we saw in Beirut over the past few weeks, it’s something that we made clear to the government of Israel we had concerns with and we were opposed to,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said late last Tuesday.

The US had previously expressed open criticism of Israeli air strikes that struck residential buildings in central Beirut on October 10, killing 22 people. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: Smoke rises from Israeli air strikes on Dahiyeh in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon. (AP)  …[+]