DUBAI/TEL AVIV/BEIRUT, March 18 (Reuters) – Israeli warplanes hit central Beirut in the early hours of Wednesday, destroying apartment buildings in some of the most intense airstrikes on the centre of the Lebanese capital for decades, an expansion of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.
A day after Israel killed Iran’s powerful security chief Ali Larijani in the highest-level assassination since the war’s first day, Iran retaliated by firing missiles with multiple warheads into Israel that Israeli authorities said killed two people near Tel Aviv.
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Iran said the killing of Larijani and other officials would not hinder its operations. Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the United States and Israel failed to understand that the Islamic Republic was a robust political system that did not depend on any single individual.
Nearly three weeks into the conflict, there are scant signs of de-escalation. An unprecedented disruption to global energy supplies has raised the political stakes for U.S. President Donald Trump. Diesel prices in the United States rose above $5 a gallon on Wednesday for the first time since the 2022 inflation surge that eroded support for his predecessor Joe Biden.
Israel has stepped up its strikes on Lebanon and a ground assault in the south in pursuit of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which has fired across the border in solidarity with Tehran.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has rejected proposals conveyed to Tehran by intermediary countries to de-escalate the conflict, saying that the United States and Israel must first be “brought to their knees”, according to a senior Iranian official who asked not to be identified.
WORST STRIKES ON CENTRAL BEIRUT FOR DECADES
In central Beirut’s Bachoura district, Israel warned residents to leave a building, which it then completely flattened. Eyewitness video, verified by Reuters, showed the structure crumbling into dust as it was struck at dawn. Firefighters later clambered over a vast pile of smoking rubble.
No such warning was given for strikes that hit apartment buildings in two other central districts, killing at least 10 people, according to Lebanese authorities. Smoke poured from the balcony of one building as residents swept debris from the street, surrounded by wrecked cars.
While Israel has been striking Hezbollah‑controlled southern suburbs of Beirut for days, the latest attacks were among the worst to hit central parts of the capital in decades.
Inside Israel, an Iranian missile tore a crater into the pavement and set cars ablaze in a residential area of Holon, just south of Tel Aviv.
