Hezbollah has reported firing a cruise missile at an Israeli warship operating 68 nautical miles off the Lebanese coast, and further claimed to have scored a “direct hit” on the warship. Details of the hit remain unclear, as the IDF claims to be totally unaware of any such incident, while some videos claim to show such a ship ablaze, though it has yet to be authenticated.
Hezbollah claimed to have tracked the warship off the coast for hours, and struck it before it was able to carry out an attack on Lebanese territory. In the wake of reports on the incident, Israel attacked a residential neighborhood adjacent to Lebanon’s largest public hospital, Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut.
The hospital attack killed at least 4 people and wounded at least 39 others, with tolls continuing to rise. Israel issued an evacuation warning for south Beirut shortly before the attack. The attacking warplane was sighted by reporters flying low over the city.
Hezbollah claims missiles scored a ‘direct hit’ on an Israeli warship | Image from X
Further attacks were reported in southern Lebanon, including one strike that killed seven people, including a family of six and a relative. Among the slain in that strike was a 4-year-old child.
The family was already displaced by the war and was in Kfar Hatta, which had been ordered evacuated by Israel. The family didn’t have a car of their own, so they were waiting for another relative to come pick them up so they could leave when the strike was carried out.
Another attack on Habbush killed two girls, and wounded dozens of others. The most recent figure from the Lebanese Health Ministry was that since the Israeli war began, some 1,461 people have been killed, and 4,430 others wounded. The death toll included 129 children and 54 health care workers.
President Joseph Aoun issued a statement calling for negotiations with Israel to begin, saying he wanted to spare the country from the scale of destruction witnessed in Gaza. Israeli officials have frequently cited Gaza as a model for their present war in Lebanon.
The war was launched in the wake of a joint US-Israeli attack on Iran. IDF northern command has issued a statement today conceding that they had vastly overestimated the damage they had done to Hezbollah’s capabilities in the 2024 war, and that Hezbollah retains operational capabilities beyond what they expected when the 2026 war began.
