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By Ibrahim Dahman, Abeer Salman, Tamara Qiblawi and Allegra Goodwin, CNN
(CNN) — Israel launched a rare airstrike on the center of the Lebanese capital Beirut on Sunday, targeting the headquarters of the pro-Hezbollah Baath party.
The strike on Lebanon’s capital city is just the fourth Israeli strike inside Beirut. It hit the area, known as Ras al-Nebaa, in the middle of the day with no evacuation warning issued.
The strike killed one person and injured three others, according to a preliminary casualty count by the Lebanese health ministry.
Israeli strikes have largely focused on Shia-majority areas where Hezbollah wields influence, such as the southern suburbs of Beirut. Hundreds of internally displaced people are believed to have sought shelter in Ras al-Nebaa from the Israeli strikes.
Israel’s war on many fronts
Meanwhile, at least 50 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza on Sunday morning, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
Dozens of Palestinians displaced by the ongoing Israeli operation in the nearby Jabalya area were sheltering in two of the houses hit, a local journalist said.
“We were sitting at home and suddenly we heard intense strikes, because of this we were not able to leave the house,” one eyewitness, who is also a resident of the area, told CNN without giving his name.
The resident said the people in the area started removing the dead from the rubble in the absence of civil defense and ambulances. Gaza’s civil defense say they are unable to operate in the area due to the continuing Israeli strikes.
“These were people displaced from Jabalya to Beit Lahiya,” the eyewitness said.
A video of the aftermath seen by CNN shows children panicking, with some crying in the background, as a man tells them to calm down and get out. A toddler, covered in blood, is being held in someone’s arms.
Another toddler is heard in the background crying, “mama, mama.”
Separately, Israeli strikes targeted al-Bureij in central Gaza killing 23 people, according to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were taken.
“It was a very terrifying night, with the sounds of small children screaming — every little one calling for their mother,” one resident in the area, Mahmoud Azaiza, said.
CNN has reached out to the Israeli military for comment.
Israel launched a renewed military offensive on Jabalya last month after Israeli intelligence indicated that Hamas was trying to rebuild its capabilities in the area. The offensive displaced thousands of Palestinians and killed dozens.
The operation has inflicted losses on the Israeli military, with 20 soldiers declared to have been killed in northern Gaza since the operation began, including four last week, according to statements published by the IDF since October 6.
“This operation to systematically dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the area will continue as long as required in order to achieve its objectives,” the IDF said last month.
The continued offensive on Gaza coincides with Israel’s expanding operation in southern Lebanon. On Friday night, Israeli forces reached the village of Chama, some 61 miles from the capital of Beirut, in what is understood to be the deepest incursion into southern Lebanese territory.
Israeli forces withdrew after clashing with Hezbollah, Lebanese state media said.
Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes continued pounding the Lebanese capital on Sunday for the sixth consecutive day. The IDF renewed evacuation warnings Sunday morning for residents of Haret Hreik in the southern Beirut suburbs, where Hezbollah is known to have a strong presence.
As Israel struck Lebanon this weekend, discussions continued taking place in Beirut among political officials regarding a US initiative for a ceasefire, a Lebanese official familiar with the discussions told CNN on Saturday evening.
US officials have pushed for a ceasefire agreement to avert an expansion of Israel’s ongoing offensive in Lebanon that has devastated parts of the country. Hezbollah is currently considering the proposal, sources told CNN this week.
The-CNN-Wire
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