BBCAt least 18 people, including four children, have been killed in an Israeli air strike near Lebanon’s largest public hospital in southern Beirut, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Another 60 people were injured when at least three buildings about 50m (160ft) from Rafik Hariri University hospital were destroyed in the Jnah neighbourhood on Monday night.
The health ministry said the attack – one of at least 13 reported across the capital – caused “significant damage” to the hospital.
The Israeli military said it hit a “Hezbollah terrorist target” near the hospital, without giving details, and insisted that the hospital was not targeted or its operation affected.
It also accused Hezbollah of systematically embedding its assets among the civilian population – an allegation the armed group has previously denied.
The military had warned people to move away from several locations in southern Beirut about 15 minutes before the strike, but the area around hospital was not among them.
A BBC producer who was close to the hospital at the time said a loud bang sent people running for cover. Paramedics and firefighters found locals in distress at the scene.
On Tuesday morning, rescuers searched the piles of broken concrete and twisted metal, some carrying shovels, others only with their bare hands, at the site of the strike.
The location hit was an impoverished and densely populated neighbourhood. At least three multi-storey buildings collapsed and several others were heavily damaged.
One of the rescuers said they did not know how many people could be under the rubble.
A BBC team saw one body being recovered, while another had been located as they left.
One resident said the attack happened after a car arrived in the area, but added that they could not say who might have been travelling inside.
Videos from elsewhere in southern Beirut, where the Israeli military warned that it was going to target seven locations in advance, showed locals fleeing in vehicles and on foot as the strikes took place.
One location identified as a target by the Israeli army was about 400m from Beirut airport, Lebanon’s only functioning commercial airport. Local media shared images of windows blown in by the blast.
The Israeli military said aircraft had struck “Hezbollah weapons storage facilities, command centres, and additional terror targets in Beirut”.
“Some of the targets were located underground and included aerial and naval equipment used by Hezbollah to carry out terror attacks,” it added, without identifying the locations.
Separately, the Israeli military said it had identified a Hezbollah bunker concealed under Sahel hospital in Haret Hreik, which was later evacuated.
Military spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said, without providing evidence, that the bunker held hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold that was being used to fund Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel. He also said Israel would not strike the hospital itself.
Doctors denied the Israeli allegation and took the BBC through the building on Tuesday, including to the first and second level below ground. They insisted there was nothing underneath.
“We are an institution helping people,” said Dr Walid Alameh, the hospital’s medical director. “[The hospital] is private. It used to be and will remain. Hopefully, [the Israelis] will believe us. What we are doing is helping people.”
Israel appears to have expanded its war against Hezbollah beyond military infrastructure. On Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that they would target the group’s financial networks.
On Sunday night Israel carried out air strikes targeting branches of a financial association linked with Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital Beirut, as well as the south and east of the country.
The Israeli military said it targeted money held by Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association (AQAH), which offers financial services to civilians in areas where Hezbollah has strong support. Israel and the US accuse AQAH of being a cover for the Iran-backed group to fund its activities.
Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif told reporters on Tuesday that AQAH “had anticipated such an aggression,” adding that the organisation would fulfil its obligations towards depositors.
Also on Monday, US President Joe Biden’s special envoy to the Middle East arrived in Beirut to explore the possibility of a negotiated end to the war.
Amos Hochstein said the US wanted to see an end to the war in Lebanon “as soon as possible”.
He warned it was not in Lebanon’s interest to have its future tied to other conflicts in the region, a reference to Hezbollah’s close ties to Iran and its decision to support Hamas in the Gaza war.
He also said the old “status quo” was not sustainable and called for a “comprehensive agreement” that implemented UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
The resolution, which ended the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, called for southern Lebanon to be free of any armed personnel or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state and a UN peacekeeping force.
Israel has long complained that this formula failed to prevent Hezbollah from building a formidable military presence in southern Lebanon and firing rockets over the border.
As Mr Hochstein spoke, Hezbollah fired more rockets into northern Israel, with the Israeli military reporting that 170 projectiles had crossed the border by late Monday.
Another 80 projectiles were fired into Israel on Tuesday, according to the military. Four people were injured in the Neot Mordechai area.
Israel began an intense air campaign and ground invasion against Hezbollah after almost a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza, saying it wanted to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of Israeli border areas displaced by rocket attacks.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Palestinians on 8 October 2023, the day after its ally Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel.
More than 2,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, including 1,800 in the past five weeks, according to the country’s health ministry. Israeli authorities say 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.
