Israel launches massive strikes against Hezbollah in Beirut

Israel is still conducting "relentless" strikes against Hezbollah targets in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, journalist Karim El-Gawhary told DW on Saturday evening.

El-Gawhary said he had counted eight strikes in the southern part of the city in the previous three to four hours.

Noting how the Lebanese Ministry of Health had said that more than 50 paramedics were killed as a result of Israeli strikes over the last 72 hours, El-Gawhary also described how two Lebanese hospitals were struck by Israeli strikes and had to close, while a third was shuttered because it ran out of supplies.

"The UN is saying that the health system in Lebanon is starting to collapse," he told DW.

The Lebanese government said this week that more than a million people have been displaced by the worsening conflict, many of them have left in cars to neighboring Syria.

"People are too scared to go back," El-Gawhary said, despite having left with just the clothes on their backs. He added that "some of them are quite traumatized [by seeing their city being attacked]."

The Beirut-based journalist said some of those forced to evacuate were now camping alongside the Corniche — a seaside promenade in the center of the city — and are "really desperate" as they don't know whether the strikes would last just a few more days or maybe for many more weeks.

The potential successor to slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been out of contact since Friday, news agencies have cited Lebanese security sources as saying, after an Israeli airstrike reported to have targeted him.

Israel carried out a large strike on Beirut's southern suburbs late on Thursday that reportedly targeted Hashem Safieddine in an underground bunker.

Lebanese security sources said Israeli strikes since Friday on Dahiyeh — a residential area and Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut — have kept rescue workers from scouring the site of the attack.

Hezbollah has made no comment so far on Safieddine.

The loss of Nasrallah's rumored successor would be another blow to the Iran-backed Shiite political party and militant group in Lebanon.

Israeli strikes across the region in the past few weeks have decimated the outfit’s leadership.

Israel launched massive strikes targeting the southern suburbs of Beirut from late Saturday into Sunday, news agencies reported.

The explosions rocked the Lebanese capital, illuminating the densely populated southern suburbs.

The blasts began around midnight after Israel’s military urged residents to evacuate areas in Dahiyeh, the predominantly Shiite collection of suburbs on Beirut's southern edge which is a stronghold of the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

They followed a day of sporadic strikes and the nearly continuous buzz of reconnaissance drones.

sri/kb (AP, dpa, AFP, Reuters)