Rescue workers searched through the rubble of a collapsed building in central Beirut on Friday morning, hours after two Israeli strikes hit the Lebanese capital, killing at least 22 people and wounding dozens.
The air raid was the deadliest attack on central Beirut in over a year of war, hitting two residential buildings in neighborhoods that have swelled with displaced people fleeing Israeli bombardment elsewhere in the country.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar television and Israeli media said the strikes aimed to kill Wafiq Safa, a top security official with the group. Al-Manar said Safa was not in either building at the time. The Israeli military had no comment on the reports.
Thursday night's strikes came as Israel escalates its campaign against Hezbollah with waves of heavy airstrikes across Lebanon and a ground invasion at the border, after a year of exchanges of fire between the two rivals.
In Beirut's Burj Abi Haidar neighborhood, civil defense members and municipal workers dug through the pile of concrete and twisted metal from a three-story building knocked down by Thursday night's strike.
In an adjacent building that was badly damaged, Ahmad al-Khatib stood in the apartment of his in-laws where he, his wife, Marwa Hamdan, and their 2 ½-year-old daughter, Ayla, suffered injuries. He had just picked up his wife from work and she was performing the evening Muslim prayers at home when the blast hit.