Israel carried out new strikes on Tuesday afternoon targeting Beirut. According to the images arriving from Lebanon, a building in Dahiya, which is considered a Hezbollah stronghold, was hit. This particular building is located in close proximity to the Iranian embassy.
The moment of impact
A building in Beirut’s southern suburbs was hit by a large blast on Tuesday, March 31.
The Israeli military earlier this month ordered residents to leave swathes of the south, the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, and the group’s political heartlands in eastern…
— GMA News (@gmanews)
This was not the only one hit by the IDF. According to the national news agency of Lebanon, another residential building in the northern suburbs of Beirut was hit today by the Israeli armed forces.
“An apartment located on the ground floor of a building in Mansuria was targeted by an enemy raid,” the agency reports. Residents said they heard a loud explosion and then saw a plume of smoke rising into the sky in the area.
The suburb of Mansouria, which is inhabited mainly by Christians, had not been the target of the attacks launched by Israel since March 2 against Hezbollah, and there had been no prior order from the IDF to evacuate the area.
Israel wants to create a security zone
Israel will establish a safe zone in southern Lebanon and maintain control of the entire area up to the Litani River once the conflict with the Shiite Hezbollah group ends, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said today.
“At the end of this operation the IDF will control the area up to the Litani River, including the remaining bridges on the Litani, while at the same time they will eliminate the Radwan forces that have infiltrated the area and destroy all weapons there,” Katz said after completing a security assessment. characterizing the area as a “safety zone”.
As Katz noted, the 600,000 residents of southern Lebanon who have been displaced from their homes will not be allowed to return until there are guarantees for the safety of the residents of northern Israel.
For this purpose, “all the houses in the villages located near the Lebanese border will be destroyed based on the model of Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza, in order to permanently remove the threats near the border for the residents of the north”, he explained.
The Lebanese army is withdrawing
According to a military source cited by Al Jazeera Arabic, the Lebanese army is abandoning positions in the south amid Israel’s invasion.
According to the source, Lebanese troops withdrew from their positions in Dibil, Ain Ebel, Rmeis, al-Tairi and Beit Yahun in the central sector of the region, citing concerns about the intensification of attacks and the risk of cutting off communication with units on the ground.
Hezbollah carried out attacks on Israeli positions near the border
Hezbollah announced that its fighters today carried out a series of attacks against Israeli forces and positions along the border.
In a series of statements, the Lebanese group said it hit Israeli soldiers and vehicles near the town of Aynata with artillery fire in the morning, and launched a rocket attack in the same location in the afternoon.
Hezbollah also announced that it launched rocket attacks against Israeli troops in Avivim, in northern Israel.
