Key Points
- Israel has struck south Beirut, at a site it says Hezbollah was storing precision-guided missiles at.
- Lebanon’s president has urged France and US to halt breaches of a fragile ceasefire.
- The UN says the strike triggered ‘panic and fear’ among civilians desperate for normality.
Israel struck south Beirut on Sunday for the third time since a fragile 27 November ceasefire, prompting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to call on ceasefire guarantors France and the United States to force a halt to violations.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strike targeted a building used by Hezbollah to store “precision-guided missiles” and vowed to stop the Iran-backed militant group using Beirut’s southern suburbs as a “safe haven”.
Lebanese television channels broadcast images of a fire around the hangar-like building.
The Israeli military had earlier issued a warning to civilians to evacuate the densely populated neighbourhood, with military spokesperson Avichay Adraee saying anyone present in the area was “near Hezbollah facilities”.
Netanyahu’s office said Israel “will not allow Hezbollah to grow stronger and create any threat against it — anywhere in Lebanon”.
“The Dahiyeh neighbourhood in Beirut will not serve as a safe haven for the terrorist organisation Hezbollah,” it vowed, using the Arabic name for the southern suburbs.
In a later statement, the military said that “the storage of missiles in this infrastructure site constitutes a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon”.
But the Lebanese president condemned the strike as a new breach of the 27 November ceasefire and urged its guarantors to put a stop to Israel’s continual attacks.
Aoun called on “the United States and France, as guarantors of the ceasefire agreement, to assume their responsibilities and compel Israel to halt its attacks immediately”.
Heavy black smoke billows from an area targeted by an Israeli air strike on Beirut’s southern suburb on Sunday. Source: Getty / Marwan Naamani
‘Fear of renewed violence’
The United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, appealed to all sides to halt any actions that could further undermine the ceasefire.
“Today’s strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut generated panic and fear of renewed violence among those desperate for a return to normality,” she said in a post.
“We urge all sides to halt any actions that could further undermine the cessation of hostilities understanding.”
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon also has a seat on the ceasefire monitoring committee, alongside France and the United States and the Israeli and Lebanese governments.
The south Beirut strike was not Israel’s only operation against targets inside Lebanon on Sunday.
The Lebanese health ministry said an Israeli drone strike on the border town of Halta killed one person.
Lebanese media reported that a man was killed while working on his chicken farm. The Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah militant.
Israel has continued to carry out repeated strikes in Lebanon despite the November truce that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of full-blown war.
Under the November deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River, some 30km from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure to its south.
Israel was to withdraw all its forces from south Lebanon, but troops remain in five positions that it deems ‘strategic’.
