{"id":511784,"date":"2026-03-08T21:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T21:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/511784\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T21:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T21:00:09","slug":"lebanon-says-nearly-400-killed-in-israeli-strikes-as-us-confirms-death-of-seventh-service-member-follow-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/511784\/","title":{"rendered":"Lebanon says nearly 400 killed in Israeli strikes as US confirms death of seventh service member &#8211; follow live"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Strike on Beirut targeted Iranian commanders, Israel sayspublished at 18:46 GMT<\/p>\n<p>18:46 GMT<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-5adjh7-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/b4e7500e-9239-4a26-a61f-64a3eb8668a6.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Alice Cuddy<br \/>Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon<\/p>\n<p>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Damaged hotel building in Beirut\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/321c050c-80a2-48f4-a692-be508bbcc9c7.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In central Beirut, Lebanese police were conducting investigations today inside the Ramada Hotel, which was hit by an Israeli drone strike overnight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Israeli military said the \u201cprecise strike&#8221; had targeted commanders of Iran\u2019s elite Quds Force while they were meeting at the hotel. It named five men, including three \u201ckey&#8221; commanders killed in the strike, saying they had been responsible for intelligence gathering and transferring funds to Hezbollah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Lebanese health ministry earlier said four people had been killed and 10 injured.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is the first Israeli strike to hit in the heart of Beirut since hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah resumed last Monday. Another hotel on the outskirts of the capital was targeted earlier in the week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The streets outside the Ramada &#8211; which is located along the coast and is normally popular with business people and tourists but in recent days has been housing some people displaced from their homes &#8211; were bustling this afternoon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">People driving past looked out of their windows at the damage from the strike, which hit a corner room at the hotel, leaving the walls blackened and the windows smashed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On the street outside, I spoke to 43-year-old Mohamed Abbas, who arrived in the Lebanese capital two days ago after being displaced from his home in the south of the country and has been working in a barbershop on the street below the room that was hit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">\u201cThis is the centre of Beirut. This is something new,\u201d he said, adding that he believed it showed \u201cIsrael doesn\u2019t have a red line\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Strike on Beirut targeted Iranian commanders, Israel sayspublished at 18:46 GMT 18:46 GMT Alice CuddyReporting from Beirut, Lebanon&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-511784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}