“No one in the building survived.”

Hassan cannot take his eyes off the mound of rubble on which rescuers, aided by excavators, move cautiously, moving scrap metal and concrete blocks in search of bodies. Somewhere under the rubble of the eight-story building that was pulverized by an Israeli attack in the heart of Beirut in the early hours of Saturday, November 23, are his sister May, 62, her octogenarian husband and one of their children. , in his house. forty. “Yesterday I spoke to him again. We talk to each other every day. “What is happening is monstrous.”said the sexagenarian, whose name has been changed at his request, kneeling for a moment, feverish, to regain his composure and hold back his tears.

An acrid smell of gunpowder permeates the air and mixes with the dust in the popular neighborhood of Basta, where Shiites and Sunnis live, near the Serail, the heart of Lebanese institutions and diplomatic representations. The attack left a deep crater at the site of the targeted building and, everywhere, piles of stone and scrap metal, shattered buildings and broken windows. The Lebanese National News Agency says the attack was carried out with five missiles, “piercing bombs”. At least 20 people were killed and 66 injured, according to an interim report released Saturday night by the Ministry of Health.

Israeli officials told media on condition of anonymity that the target was Mohammad Haydar, Hezbollah’s chief of operations, without confirming his death. At the site of the attack, guarded by unarmed activists from the Shiite group, Hezbollah deputy Amin Cherri denied that a leader of his movement had been attacked. In an attempt to kill this senior military officer, the Israeli army bombed the building without warning at four in the morning, surprising the residents while they were sleeping. The blow, of rare power, was heard more than ten kilometers away.

“It’s a massacre”

About thirty people lived in the bombed building. Dozens of other people lived in adjacent buildings, some of which had their facades blown off by the explosion. They included residents of the neighborhood, as well as families from the southern, southern and eastern suburbs of the country, displaced since Israel launched an intense air campaign in Lebanon on September 23, and then a ground offensive in the strip. border, to prevent Hezbollah from firing on its territory. More than 3,670 Lebanese have been killed and 1.2 million displaced in this war, according to Lebanese authorities.

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