Israel leaves heart of Beirut in ruins as they claim destruction of Hezbollah HQ

Israeli forces say they have destroyed the headquarters of Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital.

IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said: “The Israel Defence Forces carried out a precise strike on the central headquarters of the Hezbollah terror organisation – that served as the epicentre of Hezbollah’s terror.

“Hezbollah’s central headquarters was built under residential buildings in the heart of the Dahieh, in Beirut, as part of Hezbollah’s strategy of using Lebanese people as human shields.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended violence against Hezbollah in a speech to the United Nations in New York yesterday.

He said the group had attacked Israel unprovoked, adding: “We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border, able to perpetrate another 7th October-style massacre.”

He also warned that “the long arm of Israel” could reach anywhere in Iran – or anywhere in the Middle East. Mr Netanyahu went on to call the United Nations a “house of darkness”, saying: “In the last decade there have been more resolutions passed against Israel than resolutions against the entire world combined. What hypocrisy. What a double standard. What a joke. The war criminals are in Iran, Gaza, Syria and Lebanon.”

He accused the UN of appeasing Iran and said: “Until Israel, until the Jewish state, is treated like other nations, until this antisemitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce.”

Missile strikes continued yesterday. A Hezbollah rocket injured a man in Israel and an Israeli attack on Lebanon killed nine members of the same family, four of them children.

Syria’s defence ministry said five soldiers were killed and a sixth injured by an Israeli strike on a military site on the Syrian-Lebanese border.

The IDF, which says it killed the Head of Hezbollah’s Missiles and Rocket Force Ibrahim Muhammad Qabisi on Tuesday, yesterday added that his deputy was also killed. Japan has now joined Britain in urging its citizens to leave Lebanon while they still can.