‘Like a quake’: Beirut shaken after deadliest strikes on centre

BEIRUT: Loud bangs sounded, thick columns of smoke rose and ambulance sirens rang throughout the night as deadly Israeli strikes hit residential areas of central Beirut on Thursday (Oct 10) evening.
The Israeli attacks hit two central Beirut locations, killing 22 people and injuring over 100, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
They were the deadliest such attacks to target central Beirut since Israel intensified its bombardment campaign on the country two weeks ago.
In the working-class district of Basta, whose inhabitants are largely Sunni and Shiite Muslim, two old buildings of three or four floors had collapsed.
Israel has repeatedly pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs, the bastion of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, over the last two weeks but Thursday’s raid was only the third time the city centre has been targeted.
At the site of the second strike in the Nweiri neighbourhood, a brand new eight-storey building had been damaged.
Ayman, who lives across the street and declined to give his last name, said he “heard three explosions”.
“The kitchen windows exploded… and my son started crying,” he said.
Firemen worked to put out the blaze after the strike on what the National News Agency described as a “residential building”.
After almost a year of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel increased its air strikes against what it said are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Sep 23.
Since then, Israeli strikes have killed upwards of 1,200 people and displaced more than one million, according to official figures.
A massive Israeli strike on September 27 killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the southern suburbs, for which there was no Israeli military warning.
A five-minute drive away in another part of town, another person said the strikes sounded incredibly close.
Two other strikes have hit central Beirut in the past few weeks.