Cafe customers in central Beirut’s Hamra neighborhood erupted in celebration on a terrace after hearing news of a ballistic missile attack, claimed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and confirmed by the Israeli armed forces.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported machine gun and heavy weapons fire in the southern suburbs of Tahi and nearby Tariq Al Jadida, where residents expressed “joy at Iran’s missile launch against Israel.”
Other reports in Beirut reported celebratory gunfire in Shiite-majority areas days after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday against the Lebanese group’s headquarters in Beirut.
Hours earlier, at the end of today, two explosions were heard next to the highway connecting the center of the capital with Rafik Hariri Airport, which adjoins the Hezbollah-held suburb of Tahi, in a new attack within 24 hours. This part.
According to the National News Agency, “an enemy plane targeted a building in Gondolin roundabout near the Kuwaiti Embassy” and shortly after “bombed a building between Jnah and Ouzai, near Al-Zahra Hospital”.
At 7:40pm local time (less than two hours in Lisbon), the Israeli military announced that Iran had “launched missiles against the State of Israel” and called on people to seek shelter.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards justified the attack as revenge for the killings of the political leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, Hassan Nasrallah and former Revolutionary Guards commander Abbas Nilforushan, who were killed in Tehran on Friday. in Beirut.
The suburbs of the Lebanese capital have been regularly targeted by Israeli airstrikes over the past two weeks, causing heavy casualties among Hezbollah leaders, but early Monday there was a bombing in the Gola area, directed against members of the Popular Liberation Front. of Palestine, in the first recorded attack in the city center since the start of a new wave of instability in the Middle East last October.
Following the removal of Hezbollah’s historic leader, Iran accused Israel of “war crimes” and “state terrorism” and vowed to retaliate, as Israel did today in response to the bombings carried out by the Revolutionary Guards.
Along with celebrations in Beirut, the city is home to thousands of displaced people fleeing clashes between Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon, but there is also the possibility of an escalation of Israeli attacks in the suburbs of the capital. .
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said more than a million people had been forced to flee their homes, and Lebanon launched an appeal for emergency aid in the face of “Israel’s devastating war”. A turbulent history.
The attacks in Tel Aviv in recent days were justified as surgical and precise, aimed at eliminating Hezbollah’s military leaders, but according to Lebanese officials, they cost hundreds of civilian lives, and were intensified after ‘pagers’ and other communication devices. The simultaneous explosions in Beirut and other parts of the country caused several deaths and injured thousands, including the Iranian ambassador, in an action that Israel did not claim responsibility for.
Today’s events follow the Israeli armed forces’ announcement that they had launched “defined, localized and targeted” ground strikes on Monday night against “Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon”, although the Shiite group denied Israeli troops had entered. Country so far.