Israel struck a seafront hotel in central Beirut on Sunday, the first attack on the city’s core since the start of the new war with Hezbollah, as Lebanon’s health minister said nearly 400 people have been killed across the country in the past week.
Lebanon’s Health Minister Rakan Nassereddine said 394 people were killed over seven days of Israeli strikes, including 83 children and 42 women. Earlier, the ministry said an Israeli air attack hit “a hotel room” in Beirut’s city center, killing four people and wounding 10 others.
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Israel’s military said it “conducted a precise strike targeting key commanders” in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, its foreign operations arm. A security official at the scene said on condition of anonymity that Hezbollah-linked rescuers recovered three bodies from the hotel.
The blast tore through a fourth-floor room in the Raouche seafront district, shattering glass and scorching walls, according to an AFP photographer at the site, as security forces cordoned off the area. Raouche, a major tourist draw along Beirut’s Mediterranean corniche with dozens of hotels now crowded by displaced families, had not been hit during the last Israel-Hezbollah war that ended with a November 2024 ceasefire.
“I came here from the southern suburbs to be safe with my children and the strike hit,” said Abu Hussein, a 45-year-old taxi driver, standing beside his damaged car. “There is no safe place.”
The latest hostilities erupted Monday after Hezbollah attacked northern Israel, saying it was responding to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during U.S.-Israeli strikes. Israel, which had continued to target Hezbollah despite the 2024 ceasefire, launched multiple waves of strikes across Lebanon this week and sent ground troops into border areas.
Hezbollah said it repeatedly targeted northern Israel, including an attack on a naval base in Haifa and a swarm of drones toward the coastal city of Nahariya. The group reiterated its call for residents to evacuate the area south of the Litani River, which spans hundreds of square kilometers.
In the south, a strike on Sir al-Gharbiyeh, just north of the Litani, killed 11 people including children, the health ministry said, as rescuers searched under the rubble. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency also reported two Israeli strikes on the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh.
Israel’s army said it struck “over 600” Hezbollah targets and killed 200 of its members over the past week. The Lebanese health minister countered that civilians, not fighters or military sites, were being hit, and said nine rescuers have been killed since the latest war began. Claims from both sides could not be independently verified.
Separately, a failed Israeli commando operation Friday night to locate the remains of airman Ron Arad, missing since 1986, killed 41 people in eastern Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities.
Amid the spiraling violence, Lebanon’s government on Thursday banned any activity by the IRGC, a principal backer of Hezbollah. A Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said 117 Iranians — including diplomats and embassy staff — were evacuated overnight from Beirut on a Russian plane bound for Turkey.
Sunday’s strike marked a dangerous widening of the battlefield into central Beirut, amplifying fears among residents that the capital’s core — home to businesses, embassies and crowded hotels — may no longer be spared. The attack also added to a surge of displacement as families from the south sought refuge in the capital and along the coast, only to find themselves within range of new strikes.
As both sides escalate, the human toll and the risk of further regional spillover continue to grow, with the front lines pushing beyond traditional zones of confrontation and into areas long considered off-limits in previous rounds of conflict.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
