Israel struck downtown Beirut, killing at least six people, in the first attack on the center of the Lebanese capital since 2006 as Iran’s military warned it would launch broader strikes if the Jewish state responds to its October 1 missile attack.
Israel said its air strike on Beirut was a precise operation, while a security source said the target was an apartment building in the capital’s central district of Bachoura near the Lebanese parliament.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said the death toll from the strike rose to six after three seriously wounded people succumbed to their wounds. Seven others were wounded in the strike, the ministry said.
Another strike targeted the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed last week, according to Lebanese security officials.
Earlier, an Israeli strike on Syria’s capital, Damascus, killed four people, including Hassan Jaafar al-Qasir, Nasrallah’s son-in-law, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.
Hezbollah is both an armed group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon. It is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, although the European Union has only blacklisted its armed wing.
The attacks on Beirut came a day after Israel, which has been pursuing a ground incursion into south Lebanon, reported that eight of its soldiers were killed — the deadliest day for the Israeli military since launching the cross-border raid this week.
Iran’s military chief, Major General Mohammad Bagheri on October 2 said the missile attack launched by Tehran had been limited to military targets, but claimed that in case of an Israeli response, larger Iranian strikes would follow.
“If the Zionist regime is not controlled and takes action against Iran, we will target all of its infrastructure,” he said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi also said in a message on X that the attack targeted “solely military and security sites” involved in what he said was the Israeli “genocide in Gaza and Lebanon” and was conducted by Iran in “self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.”
Bagheri’s statement came after Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian also warned Israel against retaliating and promised a strong response.
“We are not looking for war. It is Israel that forces us to react,” Pezeshkian said after arriving in Qatar for a summit with Asian countries.
Pezeshkian criticized Israel over the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas — designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the EU — in July in Tehran, an assassination Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for.
“We also want security and peace. It was Israel that assassinated Haniyeh in Tehran,” Pezeshkian was quoted saying on his arrival in Qatar.
Tehran on October 1 launched a massive ballistic-missile attack on Israel, its largest so far, in retaliation for the campaign launched by the Jewish state in southern Lebanon against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, prompting warnings of countermeasures from Israel and its main ally, the United States.
Israeli air defenses intercepted most of the estimated 180 missiles that were fired, though some landed in central and southern Israel.
Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said the missile attack was meant to avenge Israel’s killing of Nasrallah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he would strike back at Iran following the October 1 missile attack as fears grow of a full-blown regional war.
“Iran made a big mistake tonight — and it will pay for it,” Netanyahu said hours after the Iranian attack.
On October 2, Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, told CNN that the response to the Iranian attack will be “very strong, painful,” and will come “soon.”
People who left audio messages for RFE/RL’s Radio Farda in response to the attack indicated they had little hope that anything would change.
“The Islamic republic wanted to show pragmatism, but some in analytical circles (experts and journalists) who live outside of Iran, voiced support for war [and] pushed Iran to attack. Nothing will happen and [it] went hand in hand with hard-liners inside,” said one man.
“You can’t just call for war and bloodshed living in the free world. This is against the basics of democracy. Please help. The world needs peace.”
A woman said it was “ridiculous,” and noted that some missiles landed inside Iran.
“They think they can do anything. They lit a fire — I hope they burn in it as well,” she said.
There has been speculation that Israeli might attack sites related to Tehran’s nuclear program, but U.S. President Joe Biden said he would not support that.
Biden’s comments came after he and fellow Group of Seven leaders spoke by phone on October 2 to discuss coordinating new sanctions against Iran.
The G7 leaders “unequivocally condemned Iran’s attack against Israel” and Biden reiterated the United States’ “full solidarity and support to Israel and its people,” a White House statement said.
