Lebanon says one killed near Beirut, as Israel says struck Iran Guards member

AFP | Hazmiyeh

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An Israeli strike on Hazmieh, near Beirut, killed at least one person, Lebanon’s health ministry said, while the Israeli military said it had targeted an Iranian Revolutionary Guards member.

The Israeli military also renewed its call for residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah holds sway, to evacuate. The area has not been hit since Friday night.

The Lebanese health ministry reported in a preliminary toll that “the Israeli enemy’s raid on an apartment in Hazmieh resulted in the martyrdom of one person”.

The Israeli military said it had “struck an IRGC Quds Force terrorist in Beirut”, referring to the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

The upscale Hazmieh area, overlooking Beirut and adjacent to the presidential palace, includes diplomatic missions, government offices and luxurious residential buildings.

Mayor Jean Asmar told journalists at the scene, including an AFP photographer, that the strike targeted a room inside an apartment rented by a displaced family.

“What happened today is a sample of what can happen. The rental agreement is in one person’s name, but the target is someone else,” Asmar said.

Asmar said the attack forces the municipality to take new measures in regards to hosting people displaced from the war, “so that this incident is not repeated”.

There has been considerable unease in Lebanon about hosting displaced southerners, who are often Shia Muslims, for fear that they might be linked to Hezbollah and targeted by Israel.

Israel struck a hotel in the area on March 5, though it was not clear who the target was.

It hit a hotel room in central Beirut’s coastal Raouche area days later, claiming to have killed five people including three Quds Force members.

Iran accused Israel of killing four of its diplomats in the attack.

Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an Israeli-US strike.

Israel has since launched strikes across Lebanon, killing at least 1,039 people, and sent ground troops into the country’s south.

One of its strikes on Monday targeted a bridge linking areas in southern Lebanon to the Bekaa Valley in the east of the country, a day after a major bridge in the Tyre region was targeted.