Residents of the Lebanese capital received no warning before the attack on a crowded southern suburb, RT journalist Ali Rida Sbeity says
Israel has intensified its attacks on Lebanon, striking Beirut for the first time since a ceasefire took effect last month. RT journalist Ali Rida Sbeity has reported from the scene that residents of the crowded southern suburb received “no warning” before the attack.
Israeli fighter jets struck an apartment building in Choueifat, a densely populated district near Beirut’s international airport, on Thursday afternoon. The IDF described the raid as “targeted” but provided no further details, while Israeli media claimed the attack was aimed at a senior Hezbollah figure.
Sbeity described the attack as “very precise,” adding that residents who had returned to the area after weeks of relative calm were caught off guard because it came “without any warning.”
He also reported heavy drone activity over Beirut following the strikes, with several UAVs flying at low altitude above the capital and its southern suburbs. “People here know that if they [Israel] have a target, or what they call an assassination operation, it will happen without any warning,” he said.
The strike came as Israel widened its military campaign in southern Lebanon. On Wednesday, the IDF issued mass evacuation orders across parts of southern Lebanon and declared the area near the border “a combat zone.”
At least 16 people were reportedly killed and dozens more wounded in Israeli strikes overnight. The overall death toll since the war with Israel escalated on March 2 has surpassed 3,269, with more than 9,800 injured, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
The lDF launched a military operation against Hezbollah just days after the US-Israeli attack on Iran. Lebanese and Israeli military officials are set to hold security talks in the US on Friday. Hezbollah has dismissed the talks, while Tehran has made an end to the war in Lebanon a condition for its own Pakistan-mediated negotiations with Washington.
Both the IDF and Hezbollah have repeatedly accused each other of violating the ceasefire that took effect April 17, although Beirut had largely been spared from strikes.
