Fear engulfs Beirut residents after Israel expands deadly strikes into city centre

By Amina Ismail and Timour Azhari

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Residents of the central Beirut area hit by a deadly Israeli airstrike were still in shock on Friday amid the dust, rubble and broken glass, fearing that if their previously untargeted neighbourhood had been struck, nowhere in Lebanon was safe.

Israel's stepped-up campaign in Lebanon has heavily targeted the majority Shi'ite Muslim areas of the south, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley in the east where its foe Hezbollah has strongholds.

However, two strikes late on Thursday hit al-Basta al-Fouqa, a mixed Beirut district of apartment blocks that had filled over the past two weeks with people fleeing their homes in areas pounded by Israeli strikes.

"God alone knows what the next target will be. It is terrifying. In the north, it's scary. In the south, it's scary. In the east, it's scary. In the west, it's scary. Where do we go?" 51-year-old Hoda Adly said.

She was performing Islam's evening prayer at home on Thursday when a fireball erupted in the next building, raising a cloud of dust around her and plunging everything into chaos.

The following day, the road was strewn with glass and rubble as well as clothes, bags and other detritus of a normal day that had turned to disaster. People searched the debris for their possessions, their faces etched with shock.

Cars were piled on top of each other, twisted and crushed by the intensity of the explosion and many residents wore facemasks against the dust still hanging thick in the air.

STRIKES

The two airstrikes killed 22 people and wounded 117, Lebanese health authorities said. The attacks targeted a Hezbollah official, but security sources said he had survived.

Cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah erupted a year ago when the Iranian-backed group began launching rockets in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, after its attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza.

Amer El Halabi, 55, who lived in the same building as Adly, said many displaced people had moved into their neighbourhood and feared that Israel was using claims that Hezbollah members were among them as a pretext to expand its strikes.

"These are all residential buildings that people have been residing in for over 30 years. Where is their conscience when they kill 22 people? For what? There is no humanity left," he said.

Halabi said he was at home with his wife when the strikes hit. Minutes later, there were bodies strewn across the street.

Standing in front of his building, he said the Israeli surveillance drone perpetually buzzing over Beirut for weeks was intended to "strain people's nerves".

"It has been here for over a month. It hasn't left the sky. You can't eat, you can't drink, you can't sleep, you can't do anything," he said.

The strike tore the facades of at least five buildings and shattered the windows of others along the street. In one building, the remains of a living room were exposed for all to see, family portraits still on the wall and a curtain, grey from dust, hanging limply to the side.

A few blocks away, a family stood in front of an apartment building loading mattresses, a washing machine and other belongings onto a small pickup truck.

They had fled south Lebanon and had come to al-Basta al-Fouqa neighbourhood thinking it was safe. Now they were heading to the northern city of Tripoli. "They say it's safe there," said the woman of the family. "We have elderly family members who couldn't handle these explosions."

(Writing by Amina Ismail; Editing by Angus McDowall and Andrew Heavens)