Child among four dead after Israeli attack on hospital in Lebanon

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Israeli air strikes killed at least four people, including a child, near the main government hospital in southern Beirut on Monday, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

According to the government, another 24 people were injured in the strike in a parking lot at Rafik Hariri University Hospital.

The Israeli military said it struck a “Hezbollah terrorist target” near the hospital, but the facility was not hit. It claimed that the Iran-backed group “systematically hides its terrorist assets among the civilian population.”

The military had warned people to evacuate or move away from several locations in southern Beirut, but did not mention the hospital as one of the targets, the BBC reported.

The bombing near the hospital was one of 13 Israeli airstrikes in southern Beirut and one of the most aggressive attacks on Lebanon in more than a week. Israel said it plans to carry out more attacks in Lebanon against the Hezbollah-run financial institution Al-Qard Al-Hasan.

Lebanese authorities said at least 17 of its citizens, including four first responders, were killed on Monday before the attack on Rafik Hariri.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, Israeli airstrikes have hit large areas of Lebanon for weeks, forcing over a million people to flee their homes. The ministry said 2,483 people were killed and 11,628 others were injured in the Israeli ground invasion aimed at driving Hezbollah from southern Lebanon.

According to Israeli authorities, 59 people were killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights during the same period.

Another medical facility in a Beirut suburb, Al-Sahel Hospital, was evacuated after Israel claimed there was a Hezbollah cash bunker underneath.

Israel's chief military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, claimed that Hezbollah had hidden hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold at Al-Sahel Hospital. He said Israel would not attack the hospital but would monitor the site.

Hospital director Fadi Alameh, also a lawmaker from the Shiite Amal Movement, called the claims false and called on the Lebanese army to conduct an inspection and prove that the facility only had operating rooms, patients and a mortuary.

Hezbollah militants continued to fire rockets into northern Israel, firing 170 projectiles that crossed the border late Monday, Israel said.

Benjamin Netanyahu's forces apologized for an attack that killed three Lebanese soldiers in southern Lebanon after Lebanese forces condemned it. Israel apologized for “these undesirable circumstances,” adding that its forces struck a Hezbollah truck with a launcher on it and later struck again after seeing another truck in the same area.

The Lebanese military later claimed that the truck that was attacked was owned by the army and that three militants were killed.

The Lebanese army is not officially involved in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein held talks with Lebanese officials in Beirut on Monday about the terms of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, but said it was “not enough” for both sides to commit to U.N. Resolution 1701, which The last round of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict ended Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

He demanded that southern Lebanon not have any more troops or weapons than those of the Lebanese state.