Rescue workers inspect the damage caused by an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in the southern suburb of Beirut, on June 7, 2026. (Credit: AFP file photo)
BEIRUT — A part of a building in Bir al-Abed, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, damaged by Israel, collapsed overnight Saturday into Sunday around 3:30 a.m., causing no injuries, two sources confirmed to L'Orient-Le Jour.
Contrary to reports circulating online, the building was uninhabited and had been condemned by the municipality, which had closed access with a chain out of fear of its collapse, according to Saad al-Ahmar, head of the Metn-South regional civil defense center.
A video circulating online documenting the partial collapse shows columns of smoke rising from the building. Civil defense teams, after being notified of the incident, quickly responded to the scene.
This collapse comes as a precarious cease-fire has been in effect in Lebanon since mid-June. The last shelling in the southern suburbs of Beirut dated back to June 14, when an Israeli airstrike killed at least three people and wounded 15 others.
Following the fall 2024 war, during which Beirut's southern suburbs were frequently targeted by Israeli airstrikes, a study estimated that about 50,000 households were damaged in the area.
The population density in this part of the capital explained such a figure, but not only that: the impact of the Beirut port explosion on Aug. 4, 2020, and the earthquake in Syria and Turkey, which also shook Lebanon on Feb. 6, 2023, have had a lasting effect on the building's foundations.
Israel continues detonations, drone attacks, military operations in several districts of south Lebanon