Latest Israel-Iran war: Nine dead in Beirut attack as Israel promises ‘very strong’ response to Iran missile attack

Israel’s attack on a building in the Bachoura district near the Lebanese parliament is the closest airstrike to the city’s central downtown district.

An as-yet-unverified photo circulating in Lebanese WhatsApp groups showed a badly damaged building, the first floor of which was in flames.

“Another sleepless night in Beirut. I count the explosions that rock the city. No warning sirens. I don’t know what’s next. Only this uncertainty lies ahead. Fear and anxiety are omnipresent,” said UN Special Coordinator in Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert on X on Thursday.

The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of villages and towns in southern Lebanon that lie north of a United Nations-declared buffer zone established after the 2006 war.

The warnings issued Thursday suggested a possible expansion of Israel’s incursion, which has so far been limited to areas near the border.

Israel has told people to leave Nabatea, a provincial capital, and other communities north of the Litani River. This area formed the northern edge of the border zone established by the UN Security Council after the 2006 war.

Immediately after the warning, the Lebanese Red Cross said an Israeli attack had injured four of its medics and killed a Lebanese army soldier as they evacuated wounded people from the south.

It said the convoy near the village of Taybeh, which was accompanied by Lebanese troops, was targeted on Thursday despite coordinating its movements with U.N. peacekeepers.

Israel has killed Abdel-Aziz Salha, a Hamas militant from the West Bank who was jailed for life for his role in the lynching of two Israeli reservists in Ramallah in 2000 but was later deported to Gaza as part of a prisoner swap, media and medics said of Hamas.

Salha was killed on Thursday in an Israeli airstrike on a tent at the Al-Aklouk school, which houses displaced Palestinians, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.

There was no immediate Israeli comment on Salha’s death or whether he had been deliberately targeted.

The militant group Hezbollah says it detonated a bomb against Israeli forces entering a village in southern Lebanon.

Iran has accused the G7 of being “biased and irresponsible” after the group condemned its attack on Israel, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Iran fired more than 180 rockets at Israel on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for killings of militant leaders and aggression in Gaza and Lebanon.

Abbas Nilforoushan, a deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was also killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut a week ago that killed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah.

In a statement on Wednesday, leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) condemned Tehran’s attack. They expressed “strong concern” about the crisis in the Middle East but said a diplomatic solution was still feasible and a regional conflict was in no one’s interest.

Russia has begun evacuating citizens from Lebanon and a special flight carrying the family members of Russian diplomats left Beirut on Thursday, Emergencies Minister Alexander Kurenkov said.

According to his ministry, about 60 people from Lebanon will arrive in Russia on Thursday.

“The evacuation is carried out on the instructions of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” the ministry said.

In such situations, Russia often helps evacuate citizens from other former Soviet republics.

A second British government evacuation flight is on its way to Beirut. Up to 180 British citizens and their relatives are expected to board the charter jet to Birmingham via Bucharest.

Flight DN9999 will repeat the pattern of Wednesday’s first flight and use the same Romanian airline Dan Air aircraft. It is a 15-year-old Airbus A320 – a standard budget jet with 180 seats. After a stopover in Birmingham, we return non-stop, empty, to Beirut.

On Thursday afternoon, departure is scheduled from Beirut at 3:40 p.m. Lebanese time, with another technical stop in Bucharest for refueling and crew changes.

Further evacuation flights are planned. The government says they will “continue as long as the security situation allows.”

The Lebanese Ministry of Health said at least nine people were killed in an Israeli attack in central Beirut.

DNA tests are currently underway on remains to identify those killed, while people were injured in the attack on a residential building. Hezbollah said seven medics and rescue workers from its medical arm, the Islamic Health Committee, were killed in the strike at its office in Bashoura.

Before the attack, the ministry said 55 people were killed and 156 others were injured in Israeli attacks on Lebanon on Wednesday.

The Israeli military has warned citizens in 25 other areas in southern Lebanon to evacuate the country and move north.

In a new update on social media, Israel Defense Forces Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee called on civilians to “save your lives.”