11 killed, dozens injured in Israeli strikes in Beirut

Associated Press Beirut: Israeli airstrikes Saturday killed at least 11 people and injured dozens in central Beirut, as diplomats scrambled to broker a ceasefire. Lebanon's civil defence said the death toll was provisional as emergency responders were still digging through the rubble looking for survivors. The strikes were the fourth on the Lebanese capital in less than a week. The escalation comes after US envoy Amos Hochstein travelled to the region this week in an attempt to broker a ceasefire deal to end the more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which has erupted into full-on war in the past two months. Israeli bombardment has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

It has displaced about 1.2 million, or a quarter of Lebanon's population. On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by rockets, drones and missiles in northern Israel and in fighting in Lebanon. The strikes occurred at 4 am local time, destroying an eight-story building and leaving a crater in the ground. Also on Saturday a drone strike killed one person and injured another in the southern port city of Tyre, according to the staterun National News Agency. The agency said the people killed and injured in Tyre were fishermen. An Associated Press journalist, who saw the strike from a nearby hotel overlooking the beach, said he had watched the fishermen set up their nets beforehand and they appeared to both be young teenagers.

The strikes came a day after heavy bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs and as heavy ground fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants continues in southern Lebanon, with Israeli troops pushing farther from the border. Israel's military did not issue a warning for residents to evacuate prior to the strikes in central Beirut and would not comment on those strikes or on the one in Tyre. The army said in a statement Saturday, that over the past day it had conducted intelligence-based strikes on Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs, including on several command centres and weapons storage facilities.

The army said prior to the strikes it issued advance warnings to civilians in the area. Strikes also continued in Gaza on Saturday. At least six people were killed, half of them children, and two women, in the southern city of Khan Younis, according to Associated Press reporters and staff at Nasser hospital.