The China Mail - Israel renews Beirut strikes after threatening to expand Lebanon operations

The Israeli military announced "a wave of strikes targeting Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure across Beirut", with AFPTV footage showing dark smoke rising into the sky above two districts in the heart of Beirut.

One of the strikes hit a building in Bashoura, adjacent to Beirut's commercial centre, where many large companies and government institutions are based.

An Israeli army spokesperson accused Hezbollah of "hiding... millions of dollars to fund its terrorist activities" under the building.

It was followed afterwards by another attack on a Beirut branch of the Hezbollah-linked financial firm Al Qard Al Hassan, in the downtown neighbourhood of Zoukak El-Blat.

Other Israeli strikes hit locations in Beirut's southern suburbs and the country's south.

"I address you today while Beirut is being bombed, as are its suburbs, our south, and our Beqaa," Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said in a speech to the nation.

"It is a war we did not want; on the contrary, we are working day and night to bring it to an end."

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Thursday that he had ordered troops to "prepare for expanding" attacks in Lebanon, as Israel issued an evacuation warning to all residents south of the Zahrani River, some 45 kilometres (28 miles) from the border.

"If the Lebanese government does not know how to control the territory and prevent Hezbollah from... firing toward Israel -- we will take the territory and do it ourselves," Katz said.

- Hezbollah and Iran -

Hezbollah said on Thursday it carried out a number of attacks against Israel, including on an air defence system near the town of Caesarea, home to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's private residence.

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Hezbollah attacked Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes.

Israel, which had kept up its strikes in Lebanon even before the war despite a 2024 ceasefire, has since launched air raids and sent ground troops into border areas.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Thursday that they had carried out a joint operation with Hezbollah against targets in Israel.

The joint operation drew the Lebanese government's "firm objection" with the foreign minister summoning the Iranian charge d'affaires.

- 'We won't leave' -

The violence has killed more than 687 people in Lebanon, according to national authorities, while more than 800,000 people have registered as displaced.

World Food Programme Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau, visiting Beirut, told AFP "the massive displacement we have seen here" in Lebanon "is unique" in the context of the unfolding regional war.

"Some 800,000 people in a week. That's massive."

An Israeli overnight strike on Ramlet al-Bayda, Beirut's public beachfront, killed 12 people and wounded 28, according to Lebanon's health ministry.

An AFP correspondent at the scene saw a damaged motorcycle and two damaged cars, with the area, usually bustling with crowds, sealed off by security forces.

Blood stains were on the pavement, and there was a small hole in the ground.

"We saw dead people on the ground," said Aseel Habbaj, a displaced woman who had been sheltering in a nearby tent after fleeing Israeli bombings in other areas of Lebanon.

Her 40-year-old neighbour Dalal al-Sayed said she had opted to pitch her tent at the seaside after fleeing attacks in southern Lebanon "because the last thing we expected was Israel to hit Beirut".

Her family could not afford to rent an apartment, she said.

"We won't leave, we will stay here even if we die," she added.

Displaced people have been sleeping rough or in tents on the streets of Beirut, including in Ramlet al-Bayda, where some shelters were hit by shrapnel from the overnight strike, according to an AFP correspondent.

A strike on a campus of the Lebanese University, the country's only public institution of higher learning, killed the head of the faculty of sciences and another professor, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA).

W.Tam--ThChM