BEIRUT/JERUSALEM – Israeli air attacks battered Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight and early on Sunday in the most intense bombardment of the Lebanese capital, since Israel sharply escalated its campaign against Iran-backed group Hezbollah last month. During the night, the blasts sent booms across Beirut and sparked flashes of red and white for nearly 30 minutes visible from several kilometres away. It was the single biggest attack of Israel’s assault on Beirut so far, witnesses and military analysts on local TV channels said.

On Sunday a grey haze hung over the city and rubble was strewn across streets in the southern suburbs, while smoke columns rose over the area. “Last night was the most violence of all the previous nights. Buildings were shaking around us and at first I thought it was an earthquake. There were dozens of strikes – we couldn’t count them all – and the sounds were deafening,” said Hanan Abdullah, a resident of the Burj al-Barajneh area in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Israel said its air force had “conducted a series of targeted strikes on a number of weapons storage facilities and terrorist infrastructure sites belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in the area of Beirut”. Lebanese authorities did not immediately say what the missiles had hit or what damage they caused.

This weekend’s intense bombardment came just ahead of the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on southern Israel in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli figures. (Reuters)…[+]