Israel struck south Beirut on Sunday for the third time since a fragile ceasefire was implemented on Nov. 27 last year, prompting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to call on its guarantors France and the US to force a halt.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that 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.”
A correspondent saw a plume of smoke rising over the building in the Hadath neighborhood after the strike.
Photo: EPA-EFE
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 neighborhood.
“An urgent warning for those in the southern suburbs of Beirut, especially in the Hadath neighborhood: Anyone present in the building marked in red on the attached map as well as the surrounding buildings is near Hezbollah facilities,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on social media, adding: “You must evacuate.”
Netanyahu’s office said Israel “will not allow Hezbollah to grow stronger and create any threat against it — anywhere in Lebanon.”
“The Dahiyeh neighborhood in Beirut will not serve as a safe haven for the terrorist organization 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.”
The Lebanese president condemned the strike as a new breach of the ceasefire and urged its guarantors to put a stop to Israel’s 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.”
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