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Israel carried out its largest attack on Lebanon since its war with Hezbollah began, carrying out a wave of airstrikes without warning on Beirut and across the country on more than 100 targets.
Warplanes levelled several buildings in the centre of the capital city without warning, filling the skies with smoke and the sounds of sirens as ambulances headed to impact sites.
The streets of Beirut were filled with cars crumpled by the blasts and the flaming wreckage of buildings that first responders struggled to extinguish. People rushed home to check on their families; a man filmed as he ran towards a struck building in the Chiyah neighbourhood, screaming: “There are people inside!”
Pictures of rubble-covered children circulated on social media as people tried to find their parents.
Lebanese hospitals put out an urgent call for blood donations in anticipation of the influx of wounded, while the ministry of health issued a statement urging people to “clear the streets” so ambulances could reach those injured. No exact casualty figures has been given but the Lebanese Red Cross described “a huge number of dead and wounded”.
Israel said the strikes were the “largest coordinated strike targeting more than 100 Hezbollah command centres and military sites”, saying most of the Hezbollah infrastructure it hit was “within the heart of the civilian population”.
The attack came less than 12 hours after the Iran ceasefire announcement. The office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that the two-week pause “does not include Lebanon”, while the head of the Israel’s military said after the wave of strikes that it would “continue to strike with determination”.
Iran and Pakistan said a ceasefire would include Lebanon, contrary to Israeli claims, but the US has yet to comment. Hezbollah said that it would abide by a ceasefire if Israel halted its strikes, with the MP Ibrahim Moussawi threatening that the armed group and Iran would retaliate if the attacks on Lebanon did not stop.
Up until the wave of airstrikes by Israel across Lebanon, Hezbollah had not announced any attacks against Israel – a first since the war between it and Israel began on 2 March.
Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, said Iran, the US and their allies had “agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere” as he announced the ceasefire overnight.
Israel said it supported Trump’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks provided Tehran opened the strait of Hormuz and stopped attacks on all countries in the region – but had emphasised for days that it considered Lebanon to be a separate conflict.
According to leaks, Iran’s 10-point peace plan, nominally accepted as a basis for negotiations by Trump, calls for an end of the war against “all components of the ‘axis of resistance’,” which, for Tehran, includes the pro-Iranian Lebanese group Hezbollah.
Trump did not refer to Lebanon in his ceasefire statements, which focused on Iran, leaving it unsettled whether Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, which have killed more than 1,500 people, many of them civilians, would come to a halt.
On Sunday night, Netanyahu told a meeting of Israel’s security cabinet that there would be no situation in which a ceasefire with Iran would be carried over into Lebanon. Political and military leaders agreed the war should continue.
But there were signs on Tuesday that the wider diplomatic conversation, mediated in Pakistan between the US and Iran, had come to a conclusion without Israel’s immediate input. Trump called Netanyahu to inform the Israeli leader of his decision shortly before making his ceasefire announcement.
The Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said Netanyahu had failed politically and strategically. “There has never been such a political disaster in all of our history. Israel wasn’t even at the table when decisions were made concerning the core of our national security,” he posted in the morning.
An hour before the Iran ceasefire was announced, Israel bombed a car in front of a row of beachside cafes in Saida, Lebanon, killing eight people and wounding 22, according to the Lebanese ministry of health.
Israel continued striking Lebanon into the morning, hitting the south with artillery fire and carrying out two separate drone strikes on the town of Qana and al-Qleileh. Hezbollah said it had not responded overnight.
Israel’s military also issued a warning in Arabic to people in Tyre shortly after 9am to move away from a building, statements that typically come before an airstrike in a populated area.
Lebanese sources told Reuters that Hezbollah was expected to issue a statement outlining its formal position on the ceasefire and on Netanyahu’s assertion that Lebanon was not included in the agreement.
Highways leading south in Lebanon were choked with traffic as dawn broke. Residents were attempting to return to their homes, though Hezbollah urged people not to return to certain villages because Israeli troops remained there.
WhatsApp chats were filled with anxious and hopeful messages between people in Lebanon as they tried to parse whether or not the country would be included in the Iran ceasefire.
The almost five weeks of war in Lebanon has brought the country to its breaking point, with more than 1.1 million people forcibly displaced, many of whom are living on the streets. More than 1,530 people had been killed and 4,812 wounded by Israeli airstrikes, Lebanon’s ministry of health said on Tuesday.
Several air raids on Israel took place in the first part of the night but stopped shortly before 3.30am, about 40 minutes after the Pakistani prime minister’s announcement. No incoming attacks have been reported since.
