Israeli air strikes hit Beirut suburbs after US opposes Israel’s bombardment

An Israeli strike has hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, hours after the US said it opposed the scope of Israeli attacks in the city amid a rising death toll. Follow updates.

Israel has carried out deadly strikes on south Beirut, hours after the US opposed the scope of Israeli attacks in the city and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a ceasefire in Lebanon.

Black smoke was seen billowing between buildings in the capital’s Haret Hreik area following two strikes on Wednesday, which hit barely an hour after Israeli military ordered residents to leave.

Mr Netanyahu’s vow to keep fighting came as the United States ramped up pressure over Israel’s conduct of the wars in Lebanon and Gaza, criticising the recent bombing of Beirut and demanding that more aid reach the Palestinian territory.

Smoke rise from Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon. Picture: AP Photo/Hussein Malla

In a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Mr Netanyahu said he was “opposed to a unilateral ceasefire, which does not change the security situation in Lebanon, and which will only return it to the way it was”, according to a statement from his office.

Israel’s military bombed also several areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, including in the Bekaa Valley where a hospital in Baalbek city was put out of service.

Lebanon’s health ministry said ten people were killed in strikes on the country’s south, and five others in the east, including three children.

Rescuers and responders work at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Toul, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. Picture: AFP

Asked about Israeli air strikes in Lebanon in which residential buildings in central Beirut were hit on October 10, the US State Department voiced open criticism.

“We have made clear that we are opposed to the campaign the way we’ve seen it conducted over the past weeks” in Beirut, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

In a letter sent to the Israeli government on Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also warned that the US could withhold weapons deliveries unless more humanitarian aid was delivered to Palestinians in Gaza.

The letter made “clear to the government of Israel that there are changes that they need to make again to see that the level of assistance making it into Gaza comes back up from the very, very low levels that it is at today,” Mr Miller said.

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Originally published as Israeli air strikes hit Beirut suburbs after US opposes Israel’s bombardment