Israel carried out a series of airstrikes on October 4 on the outskirts of Beirut and cut off the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, where tens of thousands of people fled Israel's bombing of the Hezbollah group.
Explosions overnight in the southern suburbs of Beirut sent huge plumes of smoke and flames into the night sky and shook buildings miles away in the Lebanese capital, AP reported.
The Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah's central intelligence headquarters around midnight. Israel claimed to have killed about 100 Hezbollah fighters in the previous 24 hours.
More than 10 consecutive airstrikes have been reported in the area, Lebanon's national news agency reported. About 1,400 Lebanese, including Hezbollah members and civilians, have been killed and about 1.2 million displaced since Israel escalated its airstrikes in late September to cripple Hezbollah and push it away from the shared Israel-Lebanon border.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said Hezbollah launched about 100 rockets into Israel on October 4.
The Israeli military also reported that an airstrike in Beirut on October 3 killed Mohammed Rashid Skafi, head of Hezbollah's media department.
The October 3 attack along the Lebanon-Syria border, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Beirut, led to the closure of the road near the Masnaa border crossing, the first time the busy crossing has been closed since Hezbollah and Israel began fighting nearly a year ago.
Israel targeted the crossing because it accused Hezbollah of using it to smuggle military equipment across the border.
Israeli warplanes have struck a tunnel used to smuggle weapons from Iran and other proxy forces into Lebanon.
Hezbollah is believed to have received most of its weapons from Iran via Syria into Lebanon.
More than 250,000 Syrians and 82,000 Lebanese have fled across the border into Syria during the escalation between Israel and Hezbollah over the past two weeks. There are about six border crossings between the two countries and most remain open.
