Lebanon’s health ministry said four people including a child had been killed on Monday evening in Israeli strikes near the country’s biggest public hospital close to the southern suburbs of Beirut.
“The Israeli enemy strike near the Hariri Hospital killed, in a preliminary toll, four people, including a child, and injured 24,” the ministry said, adding it had caused “significant damage to the hospital”.
Israel launched more strikes on Hezbollah’s south Beirut bastion Monday including for the first time the Ouzai district, Lebanese state media reported, shortly after the Israeli army warned residents of several areas to evacuate.
“An Israeli air strike targeted the Ouzai area. This is the first targeting of the Ouzai district since the start of the Israeli aggression on Lebanon,” the National News Agency said.
While most districts of Beirut’s southern suburbs had been emptied for almost a month, the densely-packed residential area of Ouzai was still filled with people because it had never been targeted before.
The NNA also reported strikes on the Haret Hreik neighborhood, just south of Ouzai, and near Lebanon’s largest public hospital.
Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers told AFP they were looking for survivors amid the devastation in Ouzai, adding that the evacuation order, then the strike, caused “panic among residents” who “started to run in the streets”.
“They did not leave any room for people to escape. The strike came closely after the warning,” one said.
AFPTV footage showed plumes of smoke rising from Beirut’s southern suburbs, with AFP correspondents also hearing several loud bangs before the strikes.
Just prior to the strikes, the Israeli military called on residents to leave parts of southern Beirut, in their latest such appeal.
Military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted the new call on social media pointing out several locations to be evacuated, including an area close to Beirut airport.
“You are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah that the IDF will work against in the near future,” he wrote.
