A strike targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut today after Israel issued a warning for seven neighbourhoods in that area which the Israeli army has been shelling since the start of the war with Hezbollah.

AfrpTV images show thick smoke billowing from the area, considered a Hezbollah stronghold, which has been abandoned by almost all of its residents.

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The Israeli army said it had struck “targets of Hezbollah terrorists in Beirut.”

Only a few shops remain open in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital. Many apartment buildings that have been targeted in recent attacks have been completely destroyed.

A petrol station run by the al Amana company, which Israel believes is controlled by Hezbollah, has been completely burned down, while portraits of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in US-Israeli strikes at the start of the war and is considered a “martyr of the nation”, are plastered on main roads.

Along the road leading to the southern suburbs residents have pitched tents in which they sleep and between two warnings from the Israeli army they go to inspect their homes.

Lebanon’s state-run ANI agency reported today that Israeli strikes also occurred in the south and east of the country.

Lebanon’s state-run ANI reported today that Israeli strikes also occurred in the south and east of the country.

On Sunday, Israel intensified its bombardment of the southern suburbs and Beirut city centre. Shelling in front of Lebanon’s main public hospital killed five people, including two Sudanese and a 15-year-old girl, according to an updated account by the health ministry.

Lebanon was dragged into war on March 2 when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Since then, Israel has been bombing Lebanon, saying it is targeting the Shiite movement, while also carrying out ground operations.

In all, more than 1,400 people have been killed, nearly 4,500 wounded, according to the Lebanese authorities’ most recent tally, and more than a million people have been displaced.

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Another strike last night on an apartment in eastern Beirut, an area previously spared from hostilities, killed three people, including a local official of the Lebanese Forces – a Christian party that is an opponent of the Iranian-allied Shiite Hezbollah – and his wife.

The Israeli army today said it struck a “terrorist target” in eastern Beirut.