Photo : Collected
An Israeli strike on a Beirut apartment block killed four people on Monday, a Lebanese security source said, the first such raid on the heart of the city since the outbreak of the war in Gaza last year.
Israel has turned its focus from Gaza to Lebanon in recent days, carrying out strikes on Hezbollah targets that killed the Iran-backed group's leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday.
Lebanon's health ministry reported at least 105 people killed in Israeli strikes on Sunday, with 359 people wounded.
Monday's drone attack targeted an apartment belonging to two members of the Lebanese Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya in Kola district, the security source said.
It was the first strike within the city's walls since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel last year.
"At least four people were killed in an Israeli drone strike targeting a flat belonging to Jamaa Islamiya in Beirut's inner city," according to the Lebanese source.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a secular left-wing group, said three of its members were killed in the strike.
The group said in a statement that its military security chief Mohammad Abdel-Aal, military commander Imad Odeh, and Abdelrahman Abdel-Aal were killed.
Television footage showed the partially flattened floor of the building targeted by the strike, in the predominantly Sunni neighbourhood of Kola, near the road linking the capital to Beirut airport.
AFP journalists reported drones flying over the Lebanese capital throughout Sunday.
Hezbollah group has engaged in cross-border fire with Israel for almost a year and says it is acting in support of Hamas militants in Gaza, who attacked Israel on October 7, triggering the war in the Palestinian territory.
Israeli attacks have killed hundreds in Lebanon since last Monday, the deadliest day since the country's 1975-1990 civil war.
French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot arrived in Lebanon on Sunday night, the first high-level foreign diplomat to visit since the Israeli air strikes intensified.
Barrot told Prime Minister Najib Mikati that Paris sought "an immediate halt" to Israeli strikes.
Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry issued a statement early Monday expressing "great concern" at the conflict in Lebanon, and calling for the country's "sovereignty and territorial integrity" to be respected.
Messenger/Disha
