October 2024 central Beirut medical center airstrike | |
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Part of the 2024 Israeli invasion of Lebanon | |
Location | Beirut, Lebanon |
Date | 4 October 2024 |
Target | Medical center |
Attack type | Airstrike |
Deaths | 9+ people, including 7 medical staff |
Injured | 14+ people |
Perpetrator | Israel Defense Forces |
On 4 October 2024, the Israel Defense Forces struck a medical center in central Beirut with an airstrike, amid the 2024 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, killing at least nine and injuring more than 14. Seven members of the medical staff were killed, including two medics, according to a civil defence group linked to Hezbollah. [1] Israel allegedly used white phosphorus to attack the medical center. [2]
The airstrike took place in the early hours of 4 October 2024. The Israeli attack on the medical center caused a fire to erupt in an apartment in the residential Bashoura district, close to the United Nations headquarters in Lebanon, the prime minister's office, and the Lebanese parliament. The medical center, located at the second floor on a 12 storey building, belonged to the Islamic Health Organization, which was linked to Hezbollah. According to human rights experts, affiliations with Hezbollah and Amal do not affect the protected status of hospitals under international law. [3] [2] Israel said it targeted Hezballah "assets", but did not issue an evacuation order prior to the strike. [4]
Lebanese residents reported a smell that resembled sulfur following the airstrike. The Lebanese state-run National News Agency accused Israel of an illegal use of White phosphorus munition under international law. [2] [5]
The strike was condemned as a violation of international law by the foreign chief of the European Union, Josep Borrell, who said the IDF had "targeted once again healthcare workers" and killed civilians in a densely populated area. [4]
The year 2023 in Israel was defined first by wide-scale protests against a proposed judicial reform, and then by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, which led to a war and to Israel invading the Gaza Strip.
Events in the year 2023 in Lebanon.
Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have exchanged fire along the Israel–Lebanon border and in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since 8 October 2023. Israel has also carried out airstrikes against Hezbollah throughout Lebanon and in Syria. The conflict is part of the spillover of the Israel–Hamas war and is the largest escalation of the Hezbollah–Israel conflict since the 2006 Lebanon War.
Events of the year 2024 in Israel.
Events in the year 2024 in Lebanon.
The Middle Eastern crisis is a series of conflicts and heightened instability in the Middle East which began with the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the war that followed, leading to a major escalation of the existing tensions between Israel and Iran. This has resulted in several proxy conflicts breaking out across the Middle East involving both sides.
This timeline of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict covers the period from 8 October 2023, when Hezbollah launched rocket strikes on Israel in response to the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel, until the beginning of the first ceasefire between Israel and Hamas which lasted from 24 November 2023 to 30 November 2023.
This timeline of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict covers the period from 2 January 2024, with the Assassination of Saleh al-Arouri, until 31 March 2024, one day prior to the Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
This timeline of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict covers the period from 27 July 2024, when a Hezbollah rocket struck a soccer field in Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, killing 12 children, to 16 September 2024, one day before the explosion of Hezbollah pagers and walkie talkies.
On 23 September 2024, Israel began a series of airstrikes in Lebanon as part of the ongoing Israel–Hezbollah conflict with an operation it code-named Northern Arrows. Since then, Israel's attacks have killed over 800 people, injured more than 5,000, and displaced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians. The attacks are the deadliest in Lebanon since the end of the Lebanese Civil War, and began five days after Israel performed a deadly pager and walkie-talkie attack on devices intended for Hezbollah members, and three days after Israel performed an airstrike on an apartment complex in Beirut which killed Redwan Force commander Ibrahim Aqil as well as 54 others.
This timeline of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict covers the period from 17 September 2024, when Hezbollah pagers exploded throughout Lebanon and Syria to the present. Beginning 23 September, Israel began its airstrikes in Lebanon, on 27 September, they assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, and on 1 October, they invaded Lebanon.
Citizens and permanent residents of Lebanon have fled the nation or have been internally displaced since the escalation of tensions between Israel and Hezbollah beginning in 2023, and especially during and following the September 2024 Lebanon strikes in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley. As of 25 September 2024, nearly 500,000 people were reported by Lebanese officials to have been displaced due to the strikes.
On 27 September 2024, Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. The strike took place while Hezbollah leaders were meeting at a headquarters located 60 feet (18 m) underground beneath residential buildings in Haret Hreik in the Dahieh suburb to the south of Beirut. Conducted by the Israeli Air Force using F-15I fighters, the operation involved dropping more than 80 bombs, including US-made 2,000-pound (910 kg) bunker buster bombs, destroying the underground headquarters as well as nearby buildings. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) codenamed the operation "New Order".
On 1 October 2024, Israel invaded Southern Lebanon in an escalation of the ongoing Israel–Hezbollah conflict, a spillover of the Israel–Hamas war. The conflict marked Israel's fourth invasion of Lebanon since 1978.
On the night of 3 October 2024, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out an airstrike on an underground bunker in Dahieh, a predominantly Shia Muslim suburb in the south of Beirut, Lebanon, where Hezbollah leaders, including Hashem Safieddine, had convened in the headquarters of Hezbollah's Intelligence Branch. Safieddine was later confirmed dead by both the IDF and Hezbollah.
On 10 October 2024, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out an airstrike in Bachoura in central Beirut, Lebanon, as part of the 2024 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The airstrike in the densely populated neighborhood killed at least 22 Lebanese people and injured another 117. The apparent target of the airstrike was Wafiq Safa, the brother-in-law of former Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, who reportedly evaded the assassination attempt against him. Israel used US-made JDAM fit for 2,000-pound bombs in the attack. The attack has been the deadliest attack in Beirut since the start of the 2023 Israel–Hezbollah conflict on 8 October 2023.
On 14 October 2024, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted an airstrike on the Maronite Christian town of Aitou in North Lebanon, as part of the 2024 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The airstrike killed 22 Lebanese people, including 12 women and 2 children, and wounded 8. This was the first time Israel targeted the Christian-majority region of Zgharta. Lebanese sources have referred to it as a massacre.
On 16 October 2024, the Israel Defense Forces targeted a meeting of the municipal council of Nabatieh in Lebanon and struck it with 10 airstrikes, killing at least 16 municipality staff, including the mayor of Nabatieh, and injuring more than 52.
The Israeli Defense Forces conducted airstrikes on the Al-Qard Al-Hasan Association, a Hezbollah-linked financial institution on the night of October 20-21, 2024. During these airstrikes, the Israeli air force targeted a number of Al-Qard Al-Hassan's sites in Lebanon.
On 28 October 2024, the Israel Defense Forces conducted a series of airstrikes on roughly a dozen settlements in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon, killing at least 134 people and leaving at least 117 others injured. Follow-up airstrikes on two villages killed at least nineteen more on 30 October, with "dozens" more being killed on 2–3 November. The airstrikes were described by regional governor Bachie Khodr as the most intense in the area since the start of Israeli–Hezbollah escalations in September 2024.