Lebanon says Israeli strikes on Beirut area kill 7

Lebanon's health ministry said today (1 April) that Israeli strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs and a nearby town killed at least seven people, as Israel's military said it had targeted senior Hezbollah members.

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war on 2 March when Tehran-backed militant group Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel to avenge the killing of Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel has responded with broad strikes across Lebanon and a ground offensive.

The health ministry said an Israeli raid early today (1 April) in the Jnah area, which borders Hezbollah's stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut, killed at least five people and wounded 21 others.

A Lebanese security source said four cars parked on a street were targeted.

An AFP correspondent at the scene shortly after the attack saw the remains of a car and firefighters battling a blaze in the dark of night.

The sound of several large explosions had been heard across the city, and a column of smoke was seen rising from the Jnah area, which is home to apartment buildings, cafes and shops.

In the morning, AFP correspondents saw a blackened, debris-strewn street with passersby coming to look.

Hassan Jalwan, who lives near Jnah, told AFP he heard several "big explosions" overnight.

"Nobody knows what's happening," he said incredulously, adding that "displaced people have been sleeping in the open" in the area.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) said the strike originated from a warship.

A separate strike that hit a vehicle in Khaldeh, just south of the capital, late Tuesday (31 March) killed two people and wounded three, the health ministry said.

An AFP correspondent there saw a charred vehicle and paramedics taking a wounded person away on a stretcher.

- Hezbollah 'commander' -

Israel's military said it had struck a "senior Hezbollah commander" and another member of the group in two separate strikes "in the Beirut area", without naming the targets or exact locations.

The NNA also reported a strike early Wednesday on the Hadath district in Beirut's southern suburbs, which has largely emptied of residents following repeated Israeli strikes and evacuation orders.

The agency also said Israeli artillery and airstrikes hit Lebanon's south and the adjacent West Bekaa area.

Hezbollah early Wednesday claimed cross-border attacks against Israel and said its fighters were engaged in "fierce clashes" with soldiers in the Lebanese town of Shamaa, around five kilometres (three miles) from the border, and claimed rocket fire targeting a group of Israeli soldiers in another area.

Around midnight (2100 GMT Tuesday), air raid sirens had sounded across northern Israel's Galilee region, according to the military's Home Front Command, hours after what Israeli media said was a barrage of more than 40 rockets fired by Hezbollah, which also claimed multiple attacks on northern Israel late Tuesday.

Israel's military has reported several casualties among its ranks in recent days in southern Lebanon.

Lebanese authorities say the war has so far killed more than 1,200 people and displaced more than one million.

Israel has said it intends to occupy parts of southern Lebanon to create what officials have called a buffer zone, seeking to push Hezbollah away from border areas.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday that "all the houses in the villages adjacent to the border in Lebanon will be demolished".

Katz's Lebanese counterpart Michel Menassa decried plans for "a new occupation", while Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney denounced Israel's deployment as an "illegal invasion".