An apparent Israeli airstrike on central Beirut has leveled an apartment building. It came after Israel hit targets across Lebanon and killed dozens of people, as Hezbollah sustained heavy blows to its command structure, including the killing of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
The early Monday airstrike — the first to hit central Beirut in nearly a year of conflict — hit a multistory residential building, according to an media journalist at the scene. Videos showed ambulances and a crowd gathered near the building in a mainly Sunni district with a busy thoroughfare lined with shops.
Separately, an Israeli airstrike early Monday killed a family of four in central Gaza, Palestinian officials said.
In the past week, Israel has frequently targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence — including a major strike on Friday that killed Nasrallah — but had not hit locations near the city center.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 105 people were killed around the country in airstrikes on Sunday. Two strikes near the southern city of Sidon, about 45 kilometers (28 miles) south of Beirut, killed at least 32 people, the ministry said. Separately, Israeli strikes in the northern province of Baalbek Hermel killed 21 people and wounded at least 47.
Lebanese media reported dozens of strikes in the central, eastern and western Bekaa and in the south, besides strikes on Beirut. Israel says it targets militants, but the strikes have hit buildings where civilians were living and the death toll was expected to rise.
Here is the latest:
DEIR -AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian medical officials say an Israeli airstrike killed six people, including two sisters and a child, in central Gaza.
The strike early Monday hit a family home in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp, according to the Awda hospital, where the casualties were taken.
The dead include a man, his two daughters and a grandchild, according to the hospital records.
Earlier on Monday, an Israeli strike hit a house in the central town of Deir al-Balah, killing two children and their parents.
Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian casualties on Hamas because the militant group operates in residential areas. The military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 41,615 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. It does not distinguish between militants and civilians but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities.
The war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim they shot down another American-made MQ-9 Reaper drone over the country, with videos purportedly showing a surface-to-air missile striking it. The U.S. military did not immediately acknowledge losing any aircraft.
The claimed attack comes as the one-year anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip approaches. The Houthis have targeted ships traveling through the Red Sea over the war as U.S.-led airstrikes pound their positions in Yemen. That’s imperiled a waterway that typically sees $1 trillion of trade pass through it, as well as crucial shipments of aid to war-torn Sudan and Yemen.
