Beirut residents and officials say thousand-pound-bombs mainly hit civilians in mission dubbed ‘Operation Eternal Darkness’
Middle East crisis – live updates
It took Israel only 10 minutes to carry out one of the worst mass-killings in Lebanon since the end of the country’s civil war in 1990.
Omar Rakha heard the war planes but did not feel the explosions; it was only when he woke up face down on the street, bleeding, that he understood what had happened. The building next to his in the Barbour neighbourhood of central Beirut had been destroyed by two Israeli bombs – he then ran through the flaming wreckage to find his sister, screaming.
Shaden Fakih, a 24-year-old calisthenics trainer, also ran towards the impact site; his friend Mahmoud was inside the struck building. He could only get so close; the multistory building was now a pile of burning rubble. Fakih began to pull people out of the apartments in front of the site, carrying an old woman in his arms whose legs no longer worked. There was no sign of Mahmoud, and the neighbourhood – once thought to be safe from Israeli bombs – felt like a war zone.
