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Israel’s military said it hit Hizbollah’s “main command centre” in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday during the most intense bombardment of the Lebanese capital since the start of its offensive.
The strikes on Beirut came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a defiant speech at the UN that Israel “must defeat” the Lebanese militant group despite growing international pressure for a ceasefire.
The Israeli army said it had struck Hizbollah headquarters, which was located under “residential buildings”.
Residents of Beirut reported hearing powerful blasts that shook the city, with large clouds of dust and smoke seen rising from the south. Hizbollah’s Al-Manar TV said four buildings had been destroyed so far. Footage on social media showed at least one enormous crater near one of the buildings that had been struck.
Al-Manar TV said there were several casualties so far in multiple strikes. Videos and photos across Lebanese media showed emergency responders at the scene, with damage to neighbouring buildings and piles of debris littering the street.
The strikes came less than two hours after Netanyahu’s speech to the UN general assembly, during which he made no mention of a US-French effort to broker a ceasefire with Hizbollah, doubled down on the campaign against Hamas in Gaza, warned Iran that Israel could hit it anywhere, and branded the UN a “swamp of antisemitic bile”.
“As long as Hizbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to our homes safely — and that is exactly what we’re doing,” he said.
“We won’t rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes. We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border, able to perpetrate another October 7-style massacre.”
Netanyahu’s address, which was met with walkouts from some other delegations and cheers from his supporters, came after the US and France proposed a 21-day truce in a last-ditch bid to prevent the hostilities from spiralling into all-out war.
US officials hope a truce would allow time to negotiate a more durable ceasefire, and would also put pressure on Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas to accept the terms of a ceasefire-for-hostages deal in Gaza.
But during his half-hour speech — twice the time allotted to speakers — Netanyahu pledged to keep up the pressure on Hizbollah, and insisted Israel would also continue its offensive in Gaza until Hamas had been destroyed and the Israeli hostages held there had been freed.
“This war can come to an end now. All that has to happen is for Hamas to surrender, lay down its arms and release all the hostages,” he said. “But if they don’t, we will fight until we achieve total victory. Total victory.”
Both speakers who took to the podium before Netanyahu on Friday — the prime ministers of Slovenia and Pakistan — condemned the soaring human toll of Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 41,000 people according to Palestinian officials, and called for an end to the fighting.
Netanyahu dismissed the criticisms, saying Israel had no choice in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack, during which militants killed 1200 people, and took another 250 hostage, according to Israeli officials.
Instead, he argued that Israel was engaged in an existential war against Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and the occupied West Bank, which he cast as a battle between good and evil.
“My country is at war, fighting for its life,” he said. “Our enemies seek not only to destroy us, they seek to destroy our common civilisation.”
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