 "This picture shows the moment a building collapses after an Israeli airstrike on Beirut's southern Ghobeiry neighbourhood on November 15, 2024. Photo: AFP")
Iran will back whatever call the Lebanese government takes concerning the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s aide said on Friday.
“We are not looking to sabotage anything. We are after a solution to the problems,” Ali Larijani said after meeting Lebanon’s caretaker Najib Mikati in Beirut.
Larijani also met Lebanon’s Parliament speaker Nabih Berri. The aide added that Iran will support Hezbollah’s “resistance” under all circumstances.
Meanwhile, on the war front, a building in Beirut’s southern suburbs collapsed in a gigantic cloud of smoke and dust following a strike attributed to Israel, an AFP photographer reported.
A series of images from the strike captured a falling projectile slamming into the lower floors of the building, which erupted in a huge fireball, causing the structure to collapse.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported a “heavy raid carried out by aircraft of the Israeli enemy” in the area of Ghobeiri, near Horsh Beirut, the capital’s largest park.
The World Bank on Thursday said that skirmishes in Lebanon that eventually triggered a war have caused the country more than $5 billion in economic losses.
Lebanon’s health ministry has said more than 40 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on the south and east, including on a civil defence centre in the Baalbek area.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsIn its Lebanon report, the World Bank provided estimates for damage between October 8, 2023 and October 27, 2024, saying “the conflict has caused $5.1 billion in economic losses”, with damage to physical structures amounting to “at least $3.4 billion” on top of that.
The losses are “largely concentrated in the commerce and tourism and hospitality sectors… as well as in the agriculture sector”, the report said.
With inputs from AFP