Major explosions rattle civilian area of Beirut as Israel says it struck Hezbollah HQ
At least 6 people killed and dozens wounded, Lebanon's Health Ministry says
The Israeli military says it struck Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut on Friday in a series of massive explosions that levelled multiple highrise apartment buildings.
The biggest blast to hit the Lebanese capital in the past year appeared likely to push the escalating conflict closer to full-fledged war.
At least six people were killed and 91 were wounded, Lebanon's Health Ministry said.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strikes on the group's headquarters, according to two people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity, including one U.S. official. The Israeli army declined comment.
It was not immediately clear if Nasrallah was at the site and Hezbollah did not comment on the report.
The death toll is likely to rise significantly as teams are still combing through the rubble of six buildings. Israel launched a series of strikes on other areas of the southern suburbs following the initial blast.
After the strikes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly cut short a visit to the United States to return home. Hours earlier, he addressed the UN, vowing that Israel's intensified campaign against Hezbollah over the past two weeks would continue — further dimming hopes for an internationally backed ceasefire.
News of the blasts came as Netanyahu was briefing reporters after his UN address. A military aide whispered into his ear, and Netanyahu quickly ended the briefing.
Israeli army spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the strikes targeted the main Hezbollah headquarters, saying it was located underground beneath residential buildings.
The series of blasts at around nightfall reduced six apartment towers to rubble in Haret Hreik, a densely populated, predominantly Shia district of Beirut's Dahiyeh suburbs, according to Lebanon's national news agency. A wall of billowing black and orange smoke rose into the sky as windows were rattled and houses shaken some 30 kilometres north of Beirut.
Footage showed rescue workers clambering over large slabs of concrete, surrounded by high piles of twisted metal and wreckage.
Several craters were visible, one with a car toppled into it. A stream of residents carrying their belongings were seen fleeing along a main road out of the district.
Israel provided no immediate comment about the type of bomb or how many it used but the resulting explosion levelled an area greater than a city block. The Israeli army has in its arsenal 2,000-pound American-made "Bunker Buster" guided bombs designed specifically for hitting subterranean targets.
Richard Weir, crisis and weapons researcher with Human Rights Watch, said the blasts were consistent with that class of bomb.
New strikes early Saturday
Israel's air force followed with a new set of strikes early Saturday shortly after a military spokesman warned residents of three buildings to flee, saying they were being used by Hezbollah to hide weapons, including anti-ship missiles.
Later, Israel's military announced additional attacks on Beqaa in eastern Lebanon and Tyre in the south.
To a degree unseen in past conflicts, Israel this past week has aimed to eliminate Hezbollah's senior leadership. But an attempt to assassinate Nasrallah — successful or not — would be a major escalation.
The Pentagon said the U.S. had no advance warning of the strikes.
Nasrallah has been in hiding for years, very rarely appearing in public. He regularly gives speeches but always by video from unknown locations. The site hit Friday evening had not been publicly known as Hezbollah's main headquarters, though it is located in the group's "security quarters," a heavily guarded part of Haret Hreik where it has offices and runs several nearby hospitals.
Four hours after the strike, Hezbollah had still not issued any statement referring to it. Instead, it announced that it had launched a salvo of rockets at the Israeli city of Safed, which it said was "in defence of Lebanon and its people, and in response to the barbaric Israeli violation of cities, villages and civilians."
The Israeli military said a house and a car in Safed were hit, and officials said a 68-year-old woman suffered mild shrapnel wounds.
Israel dramatically intensified its airstrikes in Lebanon this week, saying it is determined to put an end to more than 11 months of Hezbollah fire into its territory. The escalated campaign has killed more than 720 people in Lebanon, including dozens of women and children, according to Health Ministry statistics.
Earlier in the day, after another airstrike in the city set off a sonic boom, Malak Mahmoud Saleh, 33, said the constant bombardment is fraying her nerves and scaring her children.
"We are traumatized. Even my kids, they are always screaming and crying," she told CBC's Margaret Evans. "I'm even taking medication to calm my nerves."
Saleh left the southern city of Mahrouna with her three children, husband and mother-in-law when Israeli airstrikes destroyed her home and three neighbouring buildings. She was sheltering with her family in a primary school turned into accommodation for the displaced, using her experience running a grocery store to help organize supplies and food.
"We didn't lose anyone, thank God, but people fled towards Jezzine, Jbeil and the mountains," Saleh said. "Thankfully, everyone is OK. We talked to them yesterday. Everyone is displaced somewhere."
She said compared to the 2006 war with Israel, this one feels closer to her doorstep and she is more afraid now that she also has children and a husband to worry about.
"Now, people are politically angry," she said. "At first, the militants were far away, but now it's closer, and the state is broken; everything is broken."
Noha Jammal, 61, is staying at the same shelter as Saleh with her two daughters, her husband and the fiancé of one of her daughters.
She said the airstrikes in her town of Ainata began Monday, and the family held out two days before fleeing north.
"We were sitting in our house when the airstrikes began from every direction," she told CBC's Margaret Evans. "Smoke surrounded us, so we had to flee. We came to Beirut and started asking around from one place to another until we found this school."
She said that while the family has the basic essentials they need at the shelter, it's not home.
"We've been displaced, and each of us is struggling," she said.
"The worst thing that has ever happened in my life is what's happening now. The world is in ruins. Everything is destroyed, and no one is able to help.... We've been through many wars, but this is the worst year."
9 members of same family among dead
A predawn strike Friday in the mainly Sunni border town of Chebaa killed nine members of the same family, the state news agency said.
The scope of Israel's operation remains unclear, but officials have said a ground invasion to push the militant group away from the border is a possibility. Israel has moved thousands of troops toward the border in preparation.
U.S. President Joe Biden said the U.S. had "no knowledge of or participation in" Israel's strikes. The White House said Biden ordered his national security team to assess if further action is needed to beef up security for American interests in the Middle East.
At the UN, Netanyahu vowed to "continue degrading Hezbollah" until Israel achieves its goals. His comments dampened hopes for a U.S.-backed call for a 21-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah to allow time for a diplomatic solution.
Hezbollah has not responded to the proposal.
Iranian-backed Hezbollah, the strongest armed force in Lebanon, began firing rockets into Israel almost immediately after Hamas's Oct. 7 attack, saying it was a show of support for the Palestinians. Since then, it and the Israeli military have traded fire almost daily, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes on both sides of the border.
An Israeli security official said he expects the campaign against Hezbollah would not last for as long as the current war in Gaza, because the military's goals are much narrower.
In Gaza, Israel aims to dismantle Hamas's military and political regime, but the goal in Lebanon is to push Hezbollah away from the border — "not a high bar like Gaza" in terms of operational objectives, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to military briefing guidelines.
The Israeli military said it carried out dozens of strikes around the south Friday, targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and infrastructure. It said Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets toward the northern Israeli city of Tiberias.
In the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, civil defence workers pulled the bodies of two women — 35-year-old Hiba Ataya and her mother Sabah Olyan — from the rubble of a building brought down by a strike.
"That's Sabah, these are her clothes, my love," one man cried out as her body emerged.
Israel says its accelerated strikes this week have already inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollah's weapons capabilities and its fighters. But the group boasted a large arsenal of rockets and missiles and its remaining capacities remain unknown.
Hezbollah officials and their supporters remain defiant. Not long before the explosions Friday evening, thousands massed in another part of Beirut's suburbs for the funeral of three Hezbollah members killed in earlier strikes, including the head of the group's drone unit, Mohammed Surour.
With files from CBC's Margaret Evans and Jason Ho in Beirut