By Raghed Waked and Maya Gebeily
AIN SAADEH, Lebanon April 6 (Reuters) – An Israeli strike on an apartment east of Beirut late on Sunday killed a local official from a Christian political party, sharpening internal divides over Hezbollah as Israel’s strikes expand to new parts of the country.
The war raging in Lebanon over the past month has deepened fractures between supporters of Hezbollah and those who blame the Iran-backed group for igniting a new conflict with Israel just 15 months after the last one.
On Sunday, an Israeli strike hit an apartment in Ain Saadeh, a predominantly Christian town in the hills east of Beirut, killing a man and two women, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Ain Saadeh’s mayor said the victims were one floor below the targeted apartment.
The Lebanese Forces Party, a fiercely anti-Hezbollah Christian party, identified two of the dead as Pierre Moawad, a local party official, and his wife Flavia.
“We are paying a heavy price for a war into which we have been dragged by the lawless organisation Hezbollah,” Lebanese Forces parliamentarian Razi El Hage told Lebanese broadcaster MTV.
Israel’s full-scale air and ground campaign, launched in retaliation for Hezbollah firing into Israel on March 2 in solidarity with Iran, has killed more than 1,460 people, according to Lebanese authorities.
ISRAEL REVIEWING STRIKE
The air campaign and Israel’s orders for people to leave swathes of Lebanon’s south, east, and Beirut’s southern suburbs have displaced more than a million people, most of them from the Shi’ite Muslim community from which Hezbollah draws its support.
Some residents and local officials in predominantly Christian areas have expressed concern that displaced communities are harboring militants that could be targeted by Israel, with local authorities vetting those seeking rented accommodation.
Nadim Gemayel, a Christian lawmaker opposed to Hezbollah, told Reuters last month he was worried Israel was deliberately pushing Shi’ites into other parts of Lebanon to create conflict with other communities.
There was no Israeli military order for people to flee before Sunday’s strike. Residents said no displaced people were living in the targeted apartment or surrounding buildings.
“I’ve been in my house for 20 years, I’ve never even seen this apartment lit. There’s no one in it,” Antoine Aalam, a 70-year-old man who lives across from the targeted apartment, told Reuters on Monday.
The Israeli military told Reuters it had struck a “terror target east of Beirut” without providing further details.
“Reports that several uninvolved individuals were harmed as a result of the strike are being reviewed,” it said.
The military declined to comment on concerns that strikes on Christian communities were aimed at inflaming sectarian tensions.
CIVIL PEACE IS ‘RED LINE’
Although the last war with Hezbollah ended with a ceasefire in 2024, Israel continued its strikes on Lebanon and kept troops stationed in the country’s south.
Lebanon’s calls for Israel to negotiate a new truce have fallen on deaf ears.
Sunday’s strike came just hours after Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in his first televised address since the war erupted, said the country’s “primary concern is preserving civil peace, which is a red line.”
A separate Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs killed five people, including a teenage girl and two Sudanese migrant workers, and another on a car in southern Lebanon killed a man and his wife, and injured their two children.
(Additional reporting by Pesha Maged in Jerusalem; Writing by Maya Gebeily; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
Comments