Israeli airstrike kills 9 in Beirut as invasion of Lebanon broadens

BEIRUT —  An Israeli airstrike hit central Beirut on Thursday, killing at least nine people and wounding 14 others, as the Israeli military announced evacuation orders for additional villages and towns in south Lebanon.

Overnight, an Israeli missile slammed into an apartment building and the offices of the Islamic Health Committee, a Hezbollah-affiliated civil defense organization, Lebanese health authorities said.

The attack, less than a mile from Lebanon’s seat of government and a few hundred yards from a main highway in Beirut’s center, was the deadliest strike in the capital since the recent escalation of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.

Also hit was a Hezbollah-dominated suburb of the capital.

Elsewhere, Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters continued to engage in clashes near the Lebanese border in the second day of direct ground confrontations. Israeli warplanes pounded wide swaths of the south.

The Lebanese army, which has stayed out of the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, said two of its soldiers were killed in two Israeli attacks.

One died during an evacuation and rescue mission with the International Committee of the Red Cross in the southern border village of Taibe. Another soldier and four Red Cross workers were also wounded, the army said.

Another Lebanese soldier was killed in a strike on a Lebanese army position in the Bint Jbeil area. The Lebanese army said its troops responded to the source of fire.

As the fighting between with Hezbollah has intensified, so have fears that the Israeli army would expand its invasion beyond south Lebanon.

On Thursday the Israeli military issued warnings to residents in 20 towns and villages not included in previous evacuation orders, ordering them to leave their homes and not return until further notice.

The newly included areas reach up to the Awali River, north of a United Nations-declared buffer zone established after the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.