Israeli air strikes on central Beirut have killed 22 people and wounded at least 117, Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health says,
Al Jazeera reports.
Videos published by local news channels and verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency show chaotic scenes in the aftermath of Thursday’s air strikes on Ras el-Nabaa and al-Nuweiri in Beirut.
The strikes appear to have hit densely populated residential areas as flames and smoke rose from two residential blocks.
Many residents left their apartments in the high-rise blocks in the area and gathered in courtyards as emergency services rushed to the scene.
The area is outside the city’s southern suburbs, where attacks by Israeli forces regularly occur.
Al Jazeera’s Laura Khan, reporting from Beirut, said the attacks took place in the heart of the Lebanese capital, where many of the displaced took shelter over the past few weeks.
“Many people who had fled southern Lebanon had found shelter here, and it’s just becoming retraumatising, unpredictable and dangerous,” Khan said.
The injured were brought to local hospitals, which sent out a warning asking people not to donate blood because they were already overwhelmed by the number of casualties and the inflow of family members.
The attacks, which came without warning, mark the third time since Israel expanded its campaign on Lebanon in late September that its bombs have hit outside Dahiyeh, a southern suburb that has seen near-daily air raids in recent weeks.
