22 killed, 117 injured in Israel strikes in Beirut

Lebanon's health ministry said Thursday at least 22 people were killed and another 117 injured in strikes in Beirut. 

Israel has repeatedly pounded southern Beirut suburbs, the bastion of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, for more than two weeks but strikes have rarely targeted the city centre.

"The Israeli enemy's attacks on the capital Beirut this evening killed at least 22 people and injured 117 others," the ministry said in a statement.

Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) said the strikes hit the densely populated neighbourhoods of Nweiri and Basta.

"The first strike in Beirut targeted the third floor of an eight-storey building" in the Nweiri area, and a second strike hit "a four-storey building... in al-Basta al-Fouqa, which completely collapsed," the NNA.

An AFP photographer at the site of the strike in the Basta area said two old buildings had collapsed, while the windows of surrounding homes had been blown out with the force of the explosion.

Civil defence members and local residents were attempting to pull survivors out of the mountain of rubble, with some of them carried away on stretchers.

Firefighters were working to put out a blaze in a "residential building" hit in the Nweiri area, with residents being evacuated from the upper floors using a ladder, NNA reported.

Immediately after the raids, AFP live footage showed two plumes of smoke billowing in between densely packed buildings.

Earlier this month, Israel carried out a deadly air raid in Beirut, hitting an emergency services rescue facility run by Hezbollah, killing seven workers, the service said.