Firefighters are seen at the site of an Israeli air strike in Beirut's Bashoura neighbourhood on March 18, 2026, as the Israeli military announced it was targeting the country's south [Ibrahim Amro/AFP]By Al Jazeera Staff, AFP and ReutersPublished On 18 Mar 202618 Mar 2026
Israel has attacked a building in Bashoura, a neighbourhood in the heart of Beirut, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported, with a blast and smoke rising over the area shortly after Israel issued an evacuation threat for the site.
The attack was part of a deadly wave of Israeli strikes across Lebanon that killed more than 20 people and wounded dozens on Wednesday, according to the country’s Ministry of Public Health, with raids stretching from the capital through southern and eastern parts of the country, a devastating front in the wider United States-Israeli war against Iran embroiling the region.
At least six people were killed in the air strikes in Beirut, with dozens injured.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Beirut, Zeina Khodr, reported that intense Israeli attacks hit multiple regions across Lebanon, including central Beirut, overnight.
Speaking from in front of a 15-storey building struck in one of the attacks, Khodr said its lower floors had been bombed a week earlier. In the early hours, however, the structure was completely demolished, with the Israeli army claiming Hezbollah had stored cash there.
“You can see the widespread damage across this whole neighbourhood,” Khodr said.
Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV on Wednesday said the director of its political programmes was killed alongside his wife in an Israeli strike on central Beirut.
In a statement, the channel said “Mohammad Shari and his wife” were killed “in the Zionist raid on the Zuqaq al-Blat area in Beirut”.
His children and grandchildren were wounded and hospitalised following the strike, according to Al-Manar.
Israel’s military said it had launched what it described as limited ground operations in southern Lebanon, issuing evacuation threats for residents of four towns near the Zahrani River and the Tyre area, warning them to head north immediately.
Lebanon’s NNA also reported strikes on Tyre and the nearby area of Burj Shemali in the predawn hours.
At least four people were killed in an Israeli attack that targeted four houses in the town of Sahmar in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
Two people were killed and one was wounded in an Israeli air strike on the southern city of Sidon, NNA reported. One of the victims was a paramedic, the Health Ministry said. The strike targeted a car near the city’s waterfront.
The agency also reported that the death toll has risen from an Israeli air strike on a residential building in the Ras al-Ain neighbourhood of Baalbek on Tuesday. Four people were killed and seven wounded in the attack, the agency said.
The intensifying assault has now killed at least 912 people in Lebanon, including 111 children, and wounded more than 2,200 since Israel launched its offensive on March 2, according to Lebanese Health Ministry figures.
More than one million people have been forced from their homes. The United Nations warned on Tuesday that Israeli attacks on residential buildings and civilian infrastructure may constitute war crimes under international humanitarian law.
Lebanon’s president convened a high-level security meeting Wednesday as Israeli attacks intensify and displacement rises across the country.
The presidency said the meeting chaired by President Aoun reviewed nationwide security developments, including rising casualties and population displacement.
A spokesperson for the United Nations human rights office said that deliberately targeting civilians or civilian objects “amounts to a war crime”, adding that Israel’s sweeping displacement orders for southern Lebanon may themselves violate international law.
Khodr said that Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Naim Qassem, last night laid down conditions for the war to end, including Israel stopping attacks, displaced people being permitted to return to their homes, those detained over the last two years by Israel being released and the Israeli army withdrawing.
Across southern Lebanon, Khodr said Hezbollah was “still present in the area, trying to repel the Israeli army’s advance”, adding that Hezbollah’s aim was not just territorial control of the region, but preventing Israel from gaining new positions in the country.
The conflict was ignited on February 28 when US and Israeli forces assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, prompting Hezbollah to launch rockets into northern Israel on March 2.
Israel has since killed more than 2,000 people across Iran and Lebanon in its attacks.
France’s special envoy for Lebanon said on Wednesday that It would be unreasonable to expect Lebanon’s government to disarm Hezbollah while the country is being bombed by Israel, adding that only negotiations would resolve the crisis.
“Israel occupied Lebanon for a very long time and failed to eradicate Hezbollah’s military capacity. Therefore, they cannot now ask the Lebanese government to do that job in three days under bombardment,” Jean-Yves Le Drian told France Info radio.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, a staunch Israeli ally, had also added his voice to growing international concern, warning that Israel’s ground offensive in Lebanon was an “error” that risked worsening what he described as an already dire humanitarian situation.
