Central Beirut Israeli strike death toll rises to nine, health ministry says

The number of casualties in Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in central Beirut rose to nine dead and 14 injured, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said in its latest update on Thursday.

The early morning airstrike started a fire in an apartment in a multi-story building in the residential Bashoura district, not far from the United Nations headquarters, the prime minister’s office and parliament.

Residents in Beirut reported a sulfur-like smell in the city following the airstrike. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency later accused Israel of using the internationally banned phosphorous bombs against Beirut’s heavily-populated district.

Human rights groups have in the past accused Israel of using white phosphorus incendiary shells on residential buildings in towns and villages in conflict-hit southern Lebanon.

Israeli strikes in central Beirut are rare. The attack is the first Israeli airstrike to hit the centre of Lebanon's capital since the war between the two countries in 2006.

Multiple strikes were also reported in Beirut’s southern Dahiyeh suburbs. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) issued new evacuation orders for five buildings in Dahiyeh. The area struck in central Beirut was not covered in those warnings.

In response to the strike in the southern suburbs, the Israeli military said it conducted a precise strike in Beirut.

Face-to-face combat in Lebanon's south

Throughout Wednesday, Israel's military engaged in "close-range encounters" with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. It was the first day of face-to-face combat since Israel invaded the region on Monday.

It said that its forces had destroyed "Hezbollah attack infrastructure", "eliminated terrorists," and "dismantled terrorist infrastructure" through precision-guided munitions and close-range engagements.

The Israeli military said seven soldiers were killed in two Hezbollah attacks in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, without elaborating. The deaths followed an earlier announcement of the first Israeli combat death in Lebanon since the start of the incursion — a 22-year-old captain in a commando brigade. Another seven troops were wounded.

The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said late on Wednesday that Israeli attacks in Lebanon had killed 46 people and injured 85 in the previous 24 hours.