An Israeli airstrike hit central Beirut on Thursday, killing at least nine people and wounding 14 others, as the Israeli military announced evacuation orders for other villages and cities in southern Lebanon.
Overnight, an Israeli missile crashed into an apartment building and the offices of the Islamic Health Committee, a civil defense organization affiliated with Hezbollah, Lebanese health authorities said.
The attack, less than a mile from Lebanon's government headquarters and a few hundred meters from a main road in central Beirut, was the deadliest attack inside the capital since the escalation of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.
A Hezbollah-dominated suburb of the capital was also affected.
Elsewhere, Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters continued to clash near the Lebanese border on the second day of direct ground clashes. Israeli warplanes bombed large areas of the south.
The Lebanese army, which has stayed out of the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, said two of its soldiers were killed in two Israeli attacks.
One died during a Red Cross evacuation and rescue mission in the southern border village of Taybeh. Another soldier and four Red Cross workers were also wounded, the military said.
Another Lebanese soldier was killed in an attack on a Lebanese army position in the Bint Jbeil area. The Lebanese army said its troops responded to the source of the fire.
As fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified, so have fears that the Israeli army will expand its invasion beyond southern Lebanon.
On Thursday, the Israeli military issued warnings to residents of 20 cities and towns not included in previous evacuation orders, ordering them to leave their homes and not return until further notice.
The newly included areas reach as far as the Awali River, north of a United Nations-declared buffer zone established after the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.
