Beirut, Oct 4 (EFE).- Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs early Friday morning, causing the collapse of several buildings during strikes in which Israel’s press reported that the candidate for the Hezbollah leadership was targeted.
The heavy bombings, which resonated throughout the capital, collapsed a police station, a supermarket and other buildings in the outskirts of Dahieh, an important Hezbollah stronghold, reported the Lebanese National News Agency (NNA).
According to the state media outlet, the Israeli air force used vacuum and bunker-busting bombs during the campaign, and also hit other points on the outskirts of Beirut outside Dahieh.
The Times of Israel said that one of the targets was the cleric Hashem Safi al Din, the likely successor to Hezbollah’s top leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed a week ago in an Israeli bombing against an underground headquarters of the group in the same suburbs.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, among the targets of the attacks this morning was again a Hezbollah bunker used by senior officials.
Meanwhile, Israeli bombings near the main Lebanon-Syria border crossing on Friday cut off the road between Beirut and Damascus on the Lebanese side as tens of thousands of people try to flee to Syrian territory.
Local television channel Al-Manar, belonging to Hezbollah, broadcast footage of the site in which large holes and significant destruction can be seen on the road targeted by the bombings.
Syria is the only land supply route for Lebanon, which also only has one operational airfield in the entire country, the Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, near which several missiles have already fallen in recent days.
Masnaa is the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, and the most used by the already 160,000 displaced people fleeing to the Arab country.
Israel and Hezbollah have been at odds since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip in October 2023, but violence escalated to an unprecedented level about 10 days ago when Israeli forces began a massive bombing campaign that has razed entire towns and villages.
In this context, for a week now, Dahieh has been the target of intense waves of air strikes almost daily.
Since the beginning of hostilities, Israel’s attacks have killed almost 2,000 people, many of them civilians, and have forced 1.2 million people to flee their homes, mainly in the south and east of the Mediterranean country. EFE
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