By Riham Alkousaa and Ari Rabinovitch
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli airstrike killed four people in a central Beirut neighborhood on Monday, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said, the second day in a row that Israel has struck a target inside the capital as it presses its campaign against the Iranian-backed government. Hezbollah.
Smoke was seen rising from the site of the attack in the Zuqaq al-Blat area, a short distance from the central district of Beirut, where the Lebanese government is based. Another 18 people were injured in the attack, the ministry said.
Israel has stepped up its bombing of targets in and around the Lebanese capital over the past week, an escalation that coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy aimed at reaching a ceasefire.
Israel has dealt major blows to Hezbollah since late September, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, bombing large areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets into northern Israel, where sirens sounded again on Monday.
In Israel, a woman was killed when a rocket hit a building in a northern city, Israel Army Radio reported. The Israeli military said about five projectiles had been fired from Lebanon.
Since Israel launched its major offensive against Hezbollah, most of its airstrikes in the Beirut area have targeted the group’s strongholds in the southern suburbs.
But on Sunday, Israel attacked targets on Beirut’s city limits for the first time in more than five weeks, killing 10 people in two separate attacks, including Hezbollah’s top media official.