Just before 4am local time, while much of the city was sleeping, Beirut was pounded by another large-scale Israeli airstrike, reportedly targeting a Hezbollah official who was among four killed in the attack. A woman was slain in the attack too, according to Lebanese health authorities.
Top floors of a multi-story building were decimated in the strikes on a southern suburb of Beirut. It reportedly killed the following, identified in AFP:
A source close to Hezbollah, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to brief the media, told AFP the strike killed Hassan Bdair, Hezbollah’s “deputy head for the Palestinian file” who was “at home with his family.”
While Al Mayadeen has described Bdair as a rank and file Hezbollah member, other regional sources have indicated he was a member of Hezbollah’s Unit 3900 as well as the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The Israeli army subsequently said Tuesday that fighter jets “attacked a Hezbollah terrorist in the Dahiye area of Beirut who had recently been directing Hamas operatives and had assisted them in attempting to carry out a serious attack against Israeli civilians in the immediate future.”
“We couldn’t see each other because of all the dust,” one eyewitness who lives across the street from the destroyed building told AFP, describing “a very big explosion,” followed by another.
“Not just one person is targeted — everyone in the country, from young to old has become the target,” another nearby Lebanese resident said.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has warned that war is returning to Lebanon and called on Israel to stop these attacks, which he said suggests Israel is seeking escalation.
“The Israeli raid on the southern suburb is a serious warning about the intentions lurking against Lebanon. Israel’s persistence in its aggression requires us to exert more effort to address Lebanon’s friends and rally them in support of our right to full sovereignty over our land … to prevent violations from abroad or infiltrators from within, who provide additional pretext for aggression,” Aoun said.
Lebanese as well as regional journalists and the populace are outraged given the large airstrikes happened without warning, in the middle of the night and in a highly populated residential area…
As always, Israel claims it was targeting a Hezbollah member—its go-to excuse for war crimes. But once again, it acts in defiance of international law and above all accountability.
The truth: the building hit was a residential home in Hay Madi, a civilian neighborhood in… pic.twitter.com/pC4WMew9mc
— Hala Jaber (@HalaJaber) April 1, 2025
What’s more is that it happened on the Eid al-Fitr Muslim holiday marking the end of the Ramadan fasting period. Days ago rockets were launched on northern Israel from south Lebanon, which resulted in Israeli reprisal strikes. Hezbollah denied it was behind the launches, and the Lebanese government announced arrests of the culprits, in an apparent effort to stave off war.
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