10 killed, 45 wounded in Israeli strikes on Beirut

Lebanon's health ministry said Monday 10 people died in Israeli strikes on central Beirut a day earlier, after Hezbollah said four members were killed alongside its spokesman in one attack.

Israel has been heavily bombing Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, since all-out war erupted on September 23, but attacks on central Beirut have been rarer.

The first strike, on Beirut's Ras al-Nabaa district, killed four people, including Hezbollah's media relations chief Mohammad Afif, the group and Israel's military said.

"The Israeli enemy strike on Ras al-Nabaa in Beirut led to a final toll of seven dead including a woman and 16 others wounded," a ministry statement said, raising an earlier toll of four dead and 14 wounded.

Hezbollah said on Monday that the strike, which killed its spokesman Mohammed Afif, also killed four members of its media team.

"Hezbollah's media relations mourns four knights of the resistance media... who were martyred on the road to Jerusalem alongside their beloved leader" Afif, a statement said.

The strike, which Israel later claimed, hit the Lebanese office of the Syrian Baath party, a Lebanese security source had told AFP.

The health ministry also said the "final toll" for an Israeli strike on central Beirut's Mar Elias district late Sunday was three dead including a woman and 29 wounded, raising an earlier toll of two dead and 22 wounded.

That strike, which Israeli has not commented on, hit a densely populated residential and shopping district in the capital, sparking a blaze.

A Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity, told AFP that the strike hit an electronics store and a vehicle.

AFP journalists heard the sound of explosions and then sirens amid a strong acrid smell of burning. AFP images showed a blaze at the site that firefighters were trying to extinguish.

Lina, 59, whose home in Mar Elias is less than 500 meters from the strike site, said the raid hit a street she uses "every day to go to work".

"It's a residential area... Nowhere in the country is safe anymore," she said, requesting to be identified only by her first name.

An earlier strike on central Beirut's Ras al-Nabaa district killed Afif, who the Israeli military described as Hezbollah's "chief propagandist".

The group described their spokesman as "a great martyr on the road to Jerusalem", the expression used for its members killed by Israel.

In the wake of Sunday's strikes, Lebanon's Education Minister Abbas Halabi said schools and higher education institutions in the Beirut area would remain closed for two days.

Israel's military on Sunday told AFP that it had struck "over 200 targets" in Lebanon since Saturday morning.

Israeli strikes in Lebanon's southern Tyre region killed 11 people and wounded 48 on Sunday, the health ministry said.