Israeli escalation targets the heart of Beirut and assassination of academics in a raid on the Lebanese University

The Lebanese capital, Beirut, and its southern suburb witnessed today, Thursday, a new wave of violent Israeli air raids that targeted residential and vital areas. Field sources reported that the shelling directly targeted a building in the Bashoura neighborhood and another in the densely populated Zqaq al-Blat area, while the southern suburb was subjected to two consecutive raids that caused widespread destruction of properties.

In a remarkable field development, an Israeli drone carried out an attack targeting the courtyard of the Faculty of Science at the Lebanese University on the outskirts of the southern suburb. This raid resulted in the martyrdom of the Dean of the Faculty, Dr. Hussein Bazzi, and his colleague, Professor Dr. Mortada Sorour, in a crime that targeted academic and educational cadres in the country.

As for southern Lebanon, the Israeli war machine continued to target towns and villages, as a drone raided the public road in the town of Ain Ebel, affiliated with the Bint Jbeil district. This strike led to a number of injuries among civilians, while another raid targeted the intersection of the town of Ma'raka in the Tyre district as part of the ongoing escalation policy.

Regarding human casualties, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health announced a bloody toll as a result of a raid that targeted the town of Arki in the Sidon district in the south of the country. The ministry confirmed in a brief statement the death of 9 martyrs and the injury of 7 others with varying injuries, as ambulance and civil defense teams are working to recover the victims from under the rubble and transport the injured to hospitals.

These developments come amid the expansion of Israeli targeting to include the Lebanese interior and public facilities, amid warnings of the worsening humanitarian situation. Rescue teams continue search operations in the targeted sites in Beirut and the South, at a time when the displacement of residents from areas subjected to systematic shelling is increasing.

Dr. Hussein Bazzi, Dean of the Faculty of Science at the Lebanese University, and Dr. Mortada Sorour, a professor at the faculty, were martyred as a result of an Israeli raid that targeted the faculty's courtyard.