Massive blasts in Beirut after renewed Israeli air strikes - BBC

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 4, ARMENPRESS. Israeli bombing caused large explosions just outside Beirut's international airport during a further night of air strikes targeting Hezbollah in the city, BBC reports.

The target was unclear but the airport borders Dahieh - Hezbollah's stronghold in the capital. Plumes of smoke could be seen over the city as dawn broke on Friday, according to BBC.

Lebanon's public health ministry said 37 people had been killed in Israeli ground and air attacks in the last 24 hours while 151 others had been wounded.

Elsewhere, the Lebanese army said two of its soldiers had been killed in the country's south as Israeli forces pressed on with their invasion against Hezbollah and ordered another 20 towns and villages to evacuate.

The Israeli military has not commented, but did say its troops had killed Hezbollah fighters near the border. Hezbollah said it had targeted Israeli troops on both sides of the frontier.

The two fatal attacks on the Lebanese army soldiers were just hours apart on Thursday, the third full day of the invasion.

In the first incident, the army said, one soldier was killed and another was wounded “as a result of an aggression by the Israeli enemy during an evacuation and rescue operation with the Lebanese Red Cross in Taybeh village".

The Red Cross said four of its volunteers were also lightly wounded, and that their movements had been co-ordinated with UN peacekeepers.

The army said that in the second incident another soldier was killed “after the Israeli enemy targeted an army post in the Bint Jbeil area”.

“The personnel at the post responded to the sources of fire,” the Lebanese army added, marking a rare involvement in a conflict in which it has not engaged.

The news came as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told residents of another two dozen towns and villages in the south, including the regional capital of Nabatieh, to leave immediately for their own safety.