Israel Steps up Beirut Strikes, Hits Bridges in South Lebanon

Israel Escalates Beirut Strikes, Hits Major Bridges in Southern Lebanon

Escalation of Conflict and Impact on Lebanon

By Laila Bassam, Mohamed Azakir, Tom Perry and Khalil Ashawi

BEIRUT, March 18 (Reuters) - Israel stepped up airstrikes on Beirut on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people and destroying a 10-storey building near the city centre in the third week of its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah, Lebanese authorities said. 

In a further escalation, Israeli warplanes began striking bridges over the Litani River that link southern Lebanon to the rest of the country, destroying at least two of them, Lebanese state media said. The Israeli military said it would target bridges on the Litani to prevent Hezbollah transferring fighters and weapons, and reiterated a warning for residents to leave the south.

The Hezbollah-Israel conflict has become the deadliest spillover of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran since the Iran-backed group fired at Israel in support of Tehran on March 2, with more than 900 people killed in Lebanon and 1 million displaced.

Thousands have also been wounded. Dr. Wael Mroueh, the head of the Jabal Amel University Hospital in the southern port city of Tyre, told Reuters he had seen terrible injuries.

Medical Impact and Civilian Suffering

"Victims are coming without lower extremities, (needing a) craniotomy, with open wounds and all those things together. The victim is coming torn up and in bad shape," Mroueh said. 

Israel Hits Lebanese Infrastructure

As strikes escalated around Tyre, doctors had brought their families to stay with them at the hospital, Mroueh said. But with the roads at risk of closure, they were now starting to leave with their families to head north.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that Israel's military had destroyed two additional bridges over the Litani that he said Hezbollah had used to smuggle weapons and operatives south.

Katz described the action as "a clear message to the Lebanese government: the State of Israel will not allow such a reality."

Israel destroyed a bridge in southern Lebanon on Friday and dropped leaflets in Beirut threatening Gaza-scale devastation.

Fears are growing in Lebanon that cutting off southern Lebanon from the rest of the country could pave the way for a large-scale Israeli military operation into Lebanese territory.

On Wednesday, an Israeli military officer commanding troops operating in Lebanon told Reuters that his troops are "prepared to do all kinds of operations" if the military issued orders to establish positions as far as the Litani, nearly 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the Israeli border. 

Escalation in Beirut

Four Strikes in Eight Hours

The escalation in central Beirut, where Israel targeted four buildings in eight hours, followed what Hezbollah described as a large rocket attack against Israel late on Tuesday. Some 100 rockets were fired, Lebanese security sources said.

The Israeli military said preventative strikes had blunted the Hezbollah attack, and an overnight wave of strikes hit Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon.

Targeting of Financial Institutions

The Israeli military statement said it had "struck assets" of a Hezbollah-run financial institution, Al-Qard Al-Hassan, in Beirut, and that the Israeli navy had targeted Hezbollah militants in the city. It did not say exactly where.

Human Rights Watch determined that Israeli strikes on Al-Qard Al-Hassan branches during a previous war in 2024 amounted to war crimes, saying that Hezbollah-affiliated civilian institutions were not lawful military targets.

The airstrikes in Beirut hit buildings within walking distance of the headquarters of the Lebanese government.

The targeted districts are historically mixed neighbourhoods where large numbers of Shi'ite Muslims live.

Hezbollah's al-Manar TV said one of its broadcasters, Mohammad Sherri, had been killed along with his wife in one of the strikes in the Zuqaq al-Blat neighbourhood.

Israeli Strikes 'Terrify Children'

Beirut resident Abu Khalil said he had helped people flee their homes in the Bachoura district after Israel's military posted a warning that it would hit the 10-storey building, before levelling it with a strike.

"It's just an operation to hurt, to terrify people, to terrify children. What is there here?" he said.

The Israeli military issued no warnings before the three other strikes, which tore through two buildings in the Zuqaq al-Blat neighbourhood and another building in nearby Basta.

Casualties and Humanitarian Concerns

No fatalities have been reported in Israel from Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks. The Israeli military says two of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon.

At least 40 medical workers have been killed in Israel's strikes on Lebanon since March 2, Lebanon's health ministry said. On Tuesday night, a strike left 11 rescuers in the south wounded and badly damaged the civil-defense center, its head Hussein Fakih told Reuters. 

The United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon said on Wednesday that it had noted "heavy exchanges of fire, intensified air and ground activity, and increased presence of Israeli forces inside Lebanese territory" overnight.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam, Tom Perry, Ahmed Kerdi, Mohamed Azakir and Maya Gebeily in Beirut; Steven Scheer in Jerusalem; Enas Alashray in Cairo; Jana Choukeir and Tala Ramadan in Dubai; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Jamie Freed, Kevin Buckland, Michael Perry, Lincoln Feast, Ros Russell and Diane Craft)