Eleven-story building toppled as Israel keeps up strikes in Lebanon

Air strikes hit south Beirut on Friday, crumpling an 11-story building, as Israel kept up its deadly bombardment on Hezbollah strongholds.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said Israeli strikes in the south of the country killed five Hezbollah-affiliated paramedics.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 226 health workers and patients have been killed in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah began exchanging fire in October last year.

The Lebanese state-run National News Agency said Israeli warplanes carried out successive rounds of strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs from early morning until evening, including attacks on two buildings close to the city center.

The Israeli military stated that the air force which struck Hezbollah, were targeted around the city of Tyre, including an observation post, command centers, intelligence infrastructure and weapons storage facilities, and "completed a series of strikes on Hezbollah terrorist command centers" in south Beirut.

An AFK photographer captured the moment a missile struck an 11-story building, housing shops, apartments and a gym, on a busy street in south Beirut's Chiyah district.

The impact sparked a fireball and caused the structure to collapse, littering the street with debris.

Since September 23, the Israeli army has intensified air attacks on Lebanon in an escalation of its conflict with Hezbollah. Israel further initiated a ground operation across its northern border into Lebanon in early October.

According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, the death toll from Israeli air strikes has reached 3,645, with over 15,355 individuals injured since October 8, 2023.

Meanwhile, Israel bombed Gaza again on Friday. In the south of Jabalia, one man took his cousins to hospital after a strike and told Reuters that the world should "put an end" to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Friday that hospitals have only two days of fuel left before they restrict services, after the UN warned that aid delivery to the devastated territory is being crippled.

The UN, along with many others, has repeatedly decried humanitarian conditions, particularly in northern Gaza. Marwan al-Hams, director of Gaza's field hospitals, told Reuters that all hospitals in the Palestinian territory "will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation's (Israel's) obstruction of fuel entry."

The WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was "deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of 80 patients, including eight in the intensive care unit" at Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of only two partly operating in northern Gaza.

Hossam Abu Safia, the director of the hospital, told AFP it was "deliberately hit by Israeli shelling for the second day," and that "one doctor and some patients were injured."

On late Thursday, Muhannad Hadi, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories said, "The delivery of critical aid across Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies, is grinding to a halt."

He said that for more than six weeks, Israeli authorities "have been banning commercial imports" while "a surge in armed looting" has hit aid convoys.

(With input from agencies)