The "Sarraf" building in Beirut's Cola district hit by an Israeli strike in the early hours of Monday morning, Sept 30, 2024. (Photo sent to L'Orient Today by residents)
BEIRUT — A residential apartment near the Cola bridge in Beirut was hit by an Israeli airstrike at around 1 a.m. on Monday morning, according to residents and local media reports. This marks the first time Israel has attacked the capital since the war began. Photos show one floor of the approximately six-story "Sarraf" building blown out by the strike.
Four people were killed including three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) according to a press release from the organization. The three victims were Imad Audi, the group's military leader in Lebanon, Mohammad Abdel Aal, a member of the political bureau, and Abdel Rahmane Abdel Aal, a member of the party. Several local media have reported a fourth victim, whose identity remains unknown.
The PFLP is the second largest group within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) after Fatah and was established in Palestine in the 60s as a Marxist-Leninist nationalist group that grew to also have a presence in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
Information regarding the death toll varied in the hours following the attack, with local media and AFP initially reporting four killed. A Lebanese security source told AFP that the apartment belonged to members of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated political party and militant group currently fighting alongside Hezbollah against Israel.
A fire could be seen burning in the targeted apartment and debris from the strike was strewn across the road alongside the Cola bridge, which links the Beirut airport road to downtown.
The Cola bridge is a busy intersection where all of the city's privately run public transport vehicles stop. The area functions as an unofficial bus station for people wishing to travel both within the city and to other parts of the country.
While the Israeli army bombed Beirut's densely populated southern suburbs several times throughout the conflict and has been bombing it regularly since Friday, this is the first time the capital itself has been hit since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah on Oct. 8, and comes as Israel has been consistently escalating its aggression on Lebanon over the last two weeks.
The strike on Cola occurred just over 48 hours after the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in the southern suburbs.
Throughout the day and well into the night, Israeli surveillance drones were heard flying over Beirut.
Photo sent to L'Orient Today by residents.
In parallel with the strike in Cola, the Israeli army announced that it was carrying out intensive airstrikes against the Bekaa, along the border with Syria. Three other strikes targeted the coastal town of Ghazieh, in southern Lebanon, shortly before 2 a.m., according to Al Jazeera.
The strike against the Cola neighborhood comes as the Israeli army maintains its military pressure against Hezbollah for the seventh day — through violent strikes against the party's strongholds across Lebanon, killing at least 105 people on Sunday, two days after the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah along with dozens of movement members.
After almost a year of cross-border firefights with Hezbollah and allied groups, the Israeli army intensified its bombardments against Hezbollah on September 23, to allow the return to northern Israel of its inhabitants displaced through a show of force.