Terrorist apartment in sight
Israel attacks residential building in central Beirut for the first time
September 30, 2024, 8:36 a.m
Israel has been carrying out air strikes against targets in Lebanon for a week, so far mainly on the southern parts of the country and suburbs of the capital. However, this has now apparently changed: a residential building is hit in a drone attack in downtown Beirut.
According to Lebanese security sources, four people were killed in an Israeli air strike on the apartment of a militant group in downtown Beirut. An Israeli drone targeted an apartment that belonged to two members of the Sunni Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya, it said. Four people were killed.
As the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) announced, three of the killed were members of the militant Palestinian group allied with Hezbollah, which is banned in Germany, among other places. Accordingly, their military security chief Mohammad Abdel-Aal, military commander Imad Odeh and member Abdelrahman Abdel-Aal were killed in the attack.
While the Israeli army has repeatedly targeted pro-Iranian Hezbollah targets in its strongholds in Beirut’s southern suburbs in recent days, this was the first attack in the center of the Lebanese capital since the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel a year ago . Television footage from local channels showed the destroyed floor of the affected building in the Kola district, which is predominantly inhabited by Sunnis and borders the road to the airport. Journalists from the AFP news agency also reported drones that could be seen over the Lebanese capital all day on Sunday.
IDF reports dozens of attacks in the Bekaa region
The Israeli army also reported attacking dozens of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon’s Bekaa region with fighter jets on Monday. “Dozens of launch pads and buildings storing weapons in the Bekaa region of Lebanon” were targeted, the army said. The locations are linked to the pro-Iranian Hezbollah. Israel will continue to “attack with all its might” and “damage and weaken Hezbollah’s military capabilities and infrastructure in Lebanon,” the Israeli army statement added.
Israel has been carrying out massive air strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon for a week. According to the latest Lebanese information, at least 105 people were killed on Sunday. Hezbollah shelling of Israel from Lebanon has also continued to increase in recent days, particularly after the killing of long-time Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other high-ranking militia officials in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday.
On October 7th last year, the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas attacked southern Israel, triggering the war in the Gaza Strip. A day later, Hezbollah opened a second front against Israel with regular rocket attacks on northern Israel – to which the Israeli army responded with attacks on Lebanese territory.
The Shiite militia sees itself as part of the “Axis of Resistance” against Israel led by Iran, which includes Hamas and the Yemeni Houthi militia. Jamaa Islamiya in Lebanon, founded in 1960 and allied with Hezbollah, is, like Hamas in the Gaza Strip, an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Since the escalation began on October 8th on the Israeli-Lebanese border, it has also been the target of several Israeli air strikes.
