Israeli airstrikes rock Beirut, cut off key border crossing between Lebanon and Syria

BEIRUT (AP) — Israel carried out another series of punishing airstrikes Friday, hitting suburban Beirut and cutting off the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria 🐟forꦑ tens of thousands of  of the Hezbollah militant group.

The overnight blasts in Beirut’s southern suburbs sent huge plumes of smoke and flames into the night sky and shook buildings kilometers (miles) away in the Lebanese capital. Additional strikes sent people running for cover in streets littered with rubble in the Dahiyeh neighborhood, where at least one building was leveled and cars were burned out.

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The Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah’s central intelligence headquarters around midnight. It did not say who it was aiming for or if any militants were killed in that strike, but it claimed to have killed 100 Hezbollah fighters in the last 24 hours.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported more than 10 consecutive airstrikes in the area. Some 1,400 Lebanese, including Hezbollah fighters and civilians, have been killed and some 1.2 million driven from their homes since Israel  aiming to cripple Hezbollah and push it away from the countries’ shared border.

And a hospital in southern Lebanon said it was shelled Friday evening after being warned to evacuate. The Salah Ghandour Hospital in the city of Bint Jbeil said in a statement that the shelling “resulteඣd in nine members of the medical and nursing staff being injured, most of them seriously,” while most of the medical staff were evacuated. A day earlier, the World Health Organization said 28 health workers in Lebanoꦬn had been killed in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile,☂ 🍒Hezbollah launched about 100 rockets into Israel on Friday, the Israel military said.

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The Israeli military also said that a strike in Beirut the day before killed Mohammed Rashid Skafi, the head of Hezbollah’s communicati๊ons division. The military said in a statement that Skafi was “a senioꦉr Hezbollah terrorist who was responsible for the communications unit since 2000” and was “closely affiliated” with high-up Hezbollah officials.

Thursday’s strike along the Lebanon-Syria border, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Beirut, led to the closure of the road near the busy Masnaa Border Crossing — the first time it has been cut off since Hezbollah and Israel began trading fire almos💖t a year ago.

Israel said it t𒆙argeted the crossing because it was being used by Hezbollah to transport military equipment across the border. It said💧 fighter jets had struck a tunnel used to smuggle weapons from Iran and other proxies into Lebanon.

Hezbollah is believed to have received much of its weaponry throu𓃲gh Syria from Iran, its main backer.

Associated Press video footage showed two huge craters on each side of the road. People got out of cars, unable to pass, carrying bags of their possessions as they crossed on foot. More than 250,000 Syria𒁃ns and 82,000 Lebanese  into Syria during the escalation of the past two weeks. There are a half-dozen crossings between the two countries, and most remain open.

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Israel launched ��its ground escalation in Lebanon on Tuesday, and its forces have been clashing with Hezbollah militants in a narrow strip along the border. Israel has vowed to put an end to Hezbollah fire into northern Israel, after nearly a year of exchanges between the two si🍌des that drove tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border. Israeli strikes over the past two weeks , including .

On Thursday,  communities in southern Lebanon, including areas beyond the buffer🐓 zone declared by the United Nations after Israel and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war in 2006.

Isr🀅aeli Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters Friday that the ground operations were limited, aimed at rooting out Hezbollah militants and making the border safe for northern residents of Israel to return to their homes,

“First of all, our mission is to make sure they’re (Hezbollah) not there,” Shoshani said. “Afterwards we will talk about how we make sure they don’t come back.”

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Nine Israeli troops have been killed in close fighting in the area, which is saturated with arms and e🧔xplosives, the military♌ said.

Two more soldiers were killed and two were severely wounded by a drone at𝕴tack in northern Israel, military officials said.

An umbrella group of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it carried out three drone strikes Friday in northern Israel. In recent months, the group has regularly claimed drone strikes launched ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚat Israel, but the strikes have rarely landed.

Iranian Foreign Minist𒀰er Abbas Araghchi, who was in Beirut on Friday to meet Lebanese officials, warned that if Israel carries out an attack on Iran, Tehran would retaliate more powerfully than it did this week when it launched at least 180 missiles into Israel in retaliation for Israeli strikes on Hezbollah.

The missile barrage🐟 amid a series of rapidly escalating attacks has threatened to push the Middle East closer to a regionwide war.

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“If the Israeli entity takes any step or measure against us, our retaliation will be stronger thඣan the previous one,” Araghchi said after meeting Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri.

In the Iranian capital, Tehran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei  and delivered a speech in which he praised the country’s missile strikes on Israel and said Iran was prepared to conduct more str📖ikes if needed.

He spoke to thousands 💯of people at Tehran’s main prayer site, the Mosalla mosque, which was decorated with a huge Palestinian flag.

Hezbollah began firing into Israel the day after , in which the militants killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage. Since then, Israel’s campaign in Gaza in retaliation has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, just over half them women and children, according to local health officials.