Israel strikes Beirut southern suburb ahead of crucial Washington talks

BEIRUT (AP) — Israel’s air force carried out an airstrike on a southern suburb of the capital, Beirut, Thursday afternoon, the Israeli military said, further straining a fragile ceasefire a day ahead of crucial negotiations in Washington.

The strike hit an apartment building but it was not immediately clear who might have been targeted. Videos from the suburb of Choueifat, close to Beirut’s international airport, showed white smoke billowing from a residential neighborhood.

Tensions have been increasing in southern Lebanon, where Israeli troops in recent days have crossed the strategic Litani River, which the Israeli military has used as a de facto boundary. Large areas to the south are under Israeli military control despite the Washington-brokered ceasefire that’s been in place since April 17.

This was the first attack close to the Lebanese capital since May 6, where an Israeli strike killed a military official with Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces in another southern Beirut suburb.

Overnight, Israeli forces pounded the coastal city of Tyre, Lebanon’s fourth-largest city, killing at least 14 people across the south of the country in its ongoing military escalation against the Hezbollah group ahead of the Washington talks.

Among those killed in the flurry of strikes were five women and children and a Lebanese soldier. Dozens of others were wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry and the state-run National News Agency.

The Israeli military said meanwhile that one of its soldiers was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack in northern Israel.

Lebanese minister seeks end to attacks on Tyre

On Thursday afternoon, the Israeli military issued another evacuation warning for Tyre and its suburbs.

Considered one of the oldest metropolises of the world, Tyre has several archeological sites, some of them submerged, including Roman baths, a colonnaded road, a Roman residential quarter, the remains of a cathedral built in 1127, a hippodrome built in the 2nd century and the remains of El-Bass necropolis.

The city was officially declared a UNESCO World heritage site in 1984.

Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi said in a statement Thursday that he has been following “with deep pain and profound concern” the ongoing Israeli attacks on Tyre.

“I have begun a series of intensive diplomatic contacts to demand an immediate halt to these attacks and to raise the voice in defense of a civilizational heritage” that should matter not only to Lebanon, but to the conscience of the entire world, he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday announced an expansion in the Israeli military’s attacks in Lebanon, apparently sparked by Hezbollah’s use of fiber-optic exploding drones that have struck Israeli troops in Lebanon and reached some of Israel’s northern border towns. The Israeli military said it has launched hundreds of attacks targeting what they said were Hezbollah military assets.

Lebanese and Israeli military officials are set to hold their first security talks on Friday in the U.S. capital. Despite the nominal ceasefire, Israeli attacks have recently intensified, while largely sparing Beirut.

Hezbollah has dismissed the talks and instead endorsed its key ally Iran, which has made ending the war in Lebanon a condition for its own talks with Washington brokered by Pakistan.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said Netanyahu instructed the military “to deepen our operation in Lebanon,” describing it as involving “a large number of our forces on the ground,” seizing the dominant terrain and fortifying the security zone to protect the communities of Israel’s north.

Despite the escalation, Mencer said Israel would continue U.S.-mediated negotiations with Lebanon in Washington, saying the talks aim to disarm Hezbollah and reach “a peace agreement that will strengthen security and stability in our region and promote prosperity and peace.”

Further north in the city of Sidon, an Israeli drone struck an apartment building where some displaced families lived, killing five people and wounding 21 others, among them five children. Among the dead was Hossan Zeidan, who once was a correspondent for Iran’s Arabic-language al-Aalam television.

Mohammad Al-Gharbi, who lived across the street from the building in Sidon, woke to the sound of the explosion.

“I was in my room when part of the wall and shattered glass fell on me, and everything was thrown into chaos,” he said. “This building that was hit had six apartments occupied by poor families who had fled from the south to escape the attacks there, only to be hit here.”

In the nearby coastal town of Adloun, an Israeli drone struck a car with a family that was fleeing, killing six people, of which four were two children and their parents, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Another drone strike that came without warning killed two people on a motorcycle near Tyre. The target of the attack was not immediately clear, NNA reported.

Elsewhere near the city of Nabatiyeh, the Lebanese military said a soldier was killed in an Israeli drone strike while he was riding his motorcycle.

Hezbollah attacks targets Israeli forces that have crossed the Litani River

The Israeli military said Thursday that a soldier in northern Israel was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack and two reservists were wounded.

Hezbollah has claimed dozens of drone and rocket attacks that it says targeted Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and northern Israel. The group said Thursday it has launched several attacks on Israeli troops and tanks that have crossed the Litani River into the town of Zawtar al-Sharqieh near Nabatiyeh, as close-range fighting continues.

Over 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced by the war between Israel and Hezbollah, which was sparked when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel on March 2 in solidarity with Iran, two days after the Iran war began.

At least 3,269 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since the start of the war, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, with over 9,800 wounded.

According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 23 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon and two civilians have been killed in northern Israel, the vast majority by drones.

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Associated Press journalists Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Koral Saeed in Abu Snan, Israel and Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, contributed to this report.

Kareem Chehayeb, The Associated Press