Death toll from rare Israeli airstrike on Beirut suburb rises to 31

Israeli airstrike in Beirut kills 31, including women and children, as tensions rise between Israel and Hezbollah.

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 (September 21, 2024).

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 neighbourhood on Friday (September 20, 2024) afternoon during rush hour as people returned home. Israel said it killed 11 Hezbollah operatives, including Ibrahim Aqil 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 (September 20, 2024) 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.