Â鶹´«Ã½

Skip to main content

Top Hezbollah commanders among 31 people killed is Israeli airstrikes on Beirut

Damaged cars at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (Bilal Hussein/AP Photo) Damaged cars at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (Bilal Hussein/AP Photo)
Share
BEIRUT, Lebanon -

The death toll from an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb has risen to 31, including seven women and three children, Lebanon's health minister said on Saturday.

Firass Abiad told reporters 68 people were also wounded of whom 15 remain in hospital, adding that search and rescue operations were still ongoing, with the number of casualties likely to rise.

The rare strike — the deadliest targeting the Lebanese capital since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war — hit a densely populated southern neighborhood on Friday afternoon during rush hour as people returned home. Israel said it killed 11 Hezbollah operatives, including Ibrahim Akil who was in charge of the group’s elite Radwan Force. The militant group members were in a meeting in the basement of the building that was destroyed.

Hezbollah announced overnight Friday that 15 of its operatives were killed by Israeli forces, but did not elaborate on the location of these deaths.

Lebanese troops cordoned off the area preventing people from reaching the building that was knocked down as members of the Lebanese Red Cross stood nearby to take any recovered body from under the rubble. On Saturday morning, Hezbollah’s media office took journalists on a tour of the scene of the airstrike where workers were still digging through the rubble.

The Minister of Public Works and Transport Ali Hamie told reporters at the scene that 23 people are still missing.

The airstrike on the crowded Qaim street knocked out an eight-story building that had 16 apartments and damaged another one adjacent to it. The missiles destroyed the first building and cut through the basement of the second where the meeting of Hezbollah officials was being held, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene.

In a nearby building, shops were badly damaged including one that sold clothes and had a sign in English that read: “DRESS LIKE YOU’RE ALREADY FAMOUS."

Emergency workers use excavators to clear the rubble at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (Bilal Hussein/AP Photo)

Friday's deadly strike came hours after Hezbollah launched one of its most intense bombardments of northern Israel in nearly a year of fighting, largely targeting Israeli military sites. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted most of the Katyusha rockets.

The militant group said its latest wave of rocket salvos was a response to past Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon. However, it came days after mass explosions of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies killed at least 37 people — including two children. Some 2,900 others were wounded in the assault which has been widely attributed to Israel.

The Lebanese health minister said Saturday hospitals across the country were filled with the wounded.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the attack which marked a major escalation in the past 11 months of simmering conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire regularly since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel ignited the Israeli military’s devastating offensive in Gaza. But previous cross-border attacks have largely struck areas in northern Israel that had been evacuated and less-populated parts of southern Lebanon.

Earlier this week, Israel’s security cabinet said stopping Hezbollah’s attacks in the country’s north to allow residents to return to their homes is now an official war goal, as it considers a wider military operation in Lebanon that could spark an all-out conflict. Israel has since sent a powerful fighting force to the northern border.

The tit-for-tat strikes have forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes in both southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

Five health workers killed in Gaza

The Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday that five of its workers were killed, and five others injured, by Israeli fire that struck the ministry’s warehouses in the southern Musbah area.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has already killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza-based Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between fighters and civilians.

Associated Press writer Jack Jeffery in Jerusalem contributed to this report 

CTVNews.ca Top Stories

Police have arrested an 18-year-old woman who allegedly stole a Porsche and then ran over its owner in an incident that was captured on video.

Since she was a young girl growing up in Vancouver, Ginny Lam says her mom Yat Hei Law made it very clear she favoured her son William, because he was her male heir.

Advocates have identified the woman who died this week after being shot by police in Surrey, B.C., as a South American refugee who was raising a young daughter.

Three men were injured after trying to subdue a man armed with a knife during afternoon prayers at a Montreal-area mosque Friday afternoon.

A 15-year-old boy who was the subject of an emergency alert in New Brunswick has been arrested.

The search for a missing six-year-old boy in Shamattawa is continuing Friday as RCMP hope recent tips can help lead to a happy conclusion.

Provincial police investigating the death of a cat that was allegedly set on fire in Orillia earlier this week released surveillance video of a person of interest in the case.

Local Spotlight

Getting a photograph of a rainbow? Common. Getting a photo of a lightning strike? Rare. Getting a photo of both at the same time? Extremely rare, but it happened to a Manitoba photographer this week.

An anonymous business owner paid off the mortgage for a New Brunswick not-for-profit.

They say a dog is a man’s best friend. In the case of Darren Cropper, from Bonfield, Ont., his three-year-old Siberian husky and golden retriever mix named Bear literally saved his life.

A growing group of brides and wedding photographers from across the province say they have been taken for tens of thousands of dollars by a Barrie, Ont. wedding photographer.

Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.

The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is celebrating an important milestone in the organization's history: 50 years since the first women joined the force.

It's been a whirlwind of joyful events for a northern Ontario couple who just welcomed a baby into their family and won the $70 million Lotto Max jackpot last month.

A Good Samaritan in New Brunswick has replaced a man's stolen bottle cart so he can continue to collect cans and bottles in his Moncton neighbourhood.