Passersby come to assess the damage after the Israeli nighttime strike that targeted the top floors of a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut on April 1, 2025. (Credit: Ibrahim Amro/AFP)
The Israeli strike carried out without warning in the early hours of Tuesday morning on a residential building in the southern suburbs of Beirut was quickly condemned by the president and the prime minister, joined immediately by other reactions within the Lebanese political class.
At least for people were killed in the attack, including Hassan Bdeir, a Hezbollah official in charge of the Palestinian dossier, and seven other injuries. The party has not made any official announcement regarding his death, but a source close to Hezbollah told AFP on condition of anonymity that the strike “targeted Hassan Bdair, the deputy chief of the Palestinian dossier within Hezbollah ... who was at home with his family.”
The U.S. State Department justified the strike in a statement cited by Reuters, linking it to last Friday's rocket fire from Lebanon. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem warned on Saturday that if the Lebanese state failed to achieve results through diplomacy against Israeli violations, “other options” would be considered.
President Joseph Aoun was the first to condemn the Israeli strike, calling the act a “dangerous warning revealing intentions” against Lebanon.
“The Israeli aggression obliges us to redouble our efforts to reach out to the friends of Lebanon in the world and rally them in support of our right to full sovereignty over our territory,” said the president on X. He insisted on the necessity “to prevent any violation of sovereignty by some who provide an additional pretext for aggression.”
“We will work with the government and the Prime Minister to thwart any attempt to ruin an exceptional opportunity to save Lebanon,” he added.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam followed suit. In a statement released in the mid-morning, he also condemned “the Israeli aggression against the southern suburb of Beirut,” calling it a “flagrant violation of United Nations Resolution 1701, which affirms the sovereignty and integrity of Lebanon.” He said that the attack constituted a “clear violation of the ceasefire concluded last November.”
الرئيس عون دان الغارة الإسرائيلية على الضاحية الجنوبية فجر اليوم: إنذار خطير حول النيات المبيتة ضد لبنان
— Lebanese Presidency (@LBpresidency) April 1, 2025
- الرئيس عون: التمادي الإسرائيلي في عدوانيته يقتضي منا المزيد من الجهد لمخاطبة أصدقاء لبنان في العالم، وحشدهم دعماً لحقنا في سيادة كاملة على أرضنا
- رئيس الجمهورية: لمنع أي…
Lebanese Forces and Hezbollah
The Minister of Social Affairs, Richard Kouyoumjian, a member of the Lebanese Forces, a Christian party opposed to Hezbollah, also condemned the strike on X before criticizing the party without naming it. He condemned those who claim they “have nothing left to lose” and state that the weapons of resistance are “sacred” and more important than “Lebanon and the region,” estimating that they prioritize “a militia” instead of supporting the state.
One of Hezbollah's MPs, Ibrahim Moussawi, visited the site of the strike. “If what is said about the presence of a resistant in the targeted apartments is true, international laws and the Geneva Convention prohibit killing people off the front,” said the MP, as reported by LBCI.
“What happened pushed us to a completely different stage, and we hold the international community, the United States and the West responsible for this crime, and the enemy has not committed for a single moment to implementing Resolution 1701,” he stated while inspecting the damaged building. He finally criticized the “irresponsible” statements from some MPs and said that certain ministers “encourage the enemy to persist in its aggression,” accounting 1,500 Israeli violations that have resulted in “dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries since the beginning of the cease-fire.”
Also on site, another Hezbollah MP, Ali Ammar, stated that the Israeli strikes “damage the reputation of the so-called international community institutions.”
“Hezbollah does not want war, but if it is imposed on them, they are ready to deter any aggression,” added the parliamentarian, stating that the party was “ready” and had “recovered all its strength and health on the political, material, security and on-ground levels.”
“[Our] patience has limits, and it is up to the resistance and the resistants to choose the right moment” to respond, he said.
Former Beirut MP Najah Wakim, who led a Nasserist movement and is close to Hezbollah, invited the state to mobilize all its deterrence power against the Israeli aggression rather than trying to weaken Hezbollah.
“The policy of weakness and vulnerability will not succeed in discouraging the enemy, nor in attracting America's sympathy,” he highlighted in a statement.
President Joseph Aoun met with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Baabda, according to an announcement from the Lebanese presidency on X. They discussed "the measures to be adopted in response to the consequences of the Israeli aggression on the southern suburbs," the presidency said.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.