The Israeli military bombed residential buildings south of Beirut on Friday that it said stood over the central headquarters of Hezbollah, barely an hour after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a combative address to the United Nations in which he vowed to defeat the group and other Iranian-backed militias.
A huge blast shook the Dahiya, an area south of Beirut where Hezbollah holds sway, and thick black smoke began rising above the skyline, in what appeared to have been the most intense bombing in the area since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began last October.
The strike targeted Hassan Nasrallah, the cleric who since 1992 has led Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese armed group and political party, according to Israeli and American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence. It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Nasrallah was killed, though there were growing concerns in Tehran that he was in the buildings when they were hit, three Iranian officials said.
Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said the bombing had caused the “complete decimation” of four to six residential buildings. At least six people were killed and more than 90 others injured, the Health Ministry said, although Mr. Abiad warned that the toll was likely to rise.
“They are residential buildings. They were filled with people,” Mr. Abiad told The New York Times. “Whoever is in those buildings is now under the rubble.”
Photos and videos showed emergency workers with flashlights searching the rubble and a heavy-duty excavator digging through piles of jagged concrete and twisted metal.
The Lebanese prime minister, Najib Mikati, said the attack proved that “the Israeli enemy pays no heed at all to the efforts and international calls for a cease-fire.” He called on world leaders to deter Israel from carrying out more strikes, and he cut short meetings at the United Nations to travel back to Beirut.
Soon after, the Israeli military said that it was beginning a new series of airstrikes south of Beirut targeting what it said were Hezbollah weapons caches hidden under residential buildings. The military issued warnings to residents to evacuate in advance of the attacks, and many began fleeing.
The bombing on Friday came just after Mr. Netanyahu concluded a defiant address to the U.N. General Assembly in which he made no mention of efforts by the United States and other countries to broker cease-fires in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli offensive against Hamas is nearing the one-year mark, or Lebanon, where Israel has been waging a stepped-up bombing campaign against Hezbollah this week.
Mr. Netanyahu said Israel was defending itself against Hamas, Hezbollah and other militias supported by Iran, including the Houthis in Yemen, who fired a missile at Tel Aviv on Friday that was shot down by Israel’s air defenses.
“Those of you who stand with these war criminals, those of you stand with evil against good, with a curse against the blessing, those of you do so, should be ashamed of yourselves,” Mr. Netanyahu said, addressing world leaders. “And I have a message for you: Israel will win this battle. We will win this battle because we don’t have a choice.”
Citing the United Nations’ history of adopting more resolutions against Israel than against any other country, Mr. Netanyahu harshly criticized the world body, calling it a “a swamp of antisemitic bile,” an “anti-Israel flat Earth society” and “a joke.”
Some diplomats walked out as Mr. Netanyahu took the lectern.
He spoke a day after Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, which partly administers the Israeli-occupied West Bank, received a standing ovation from the General Assembly. In his speech, Mr. Abbas called on world leaders to “stop the genocide, stop sending weapons to Israel.”
On Friday, an Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said that Israeli forces had struck Hezbollah’s main headquarters south of Beirut, which were “intentionally built” under residential buildings as part of the group’s strategy of hiding behind civilians.
“Israel is doing what every sovereign state in the world would do if they had a terror organization that seeks their destruction on their border,” Admiral Hagari said.
The bombing sent people running into the streets, fearing their apartment buildings could be hit next.
“It was like judgment day,” said Hussein Awada, 54, after explosions rocked the neighborhood. Rabia Ali, a Syrian refugee, said she had run from her home with her three children and a cousin. “My children are shaking with fear,” she said.
The American secretary of defense, Lloyd J. Austin III, was on the phone with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, while Israel was carrying out the strike, according to a Pentagon spokeswoman, Sabrina Singh. But she said the United States had “no involvement in this operation and did not have advanced warning.”
More than 700 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon this week, according to the country’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters. More than 500,000 have been forced from their homes, particularly in eastern and southern Lebanon.
In his speech, Mr. Netanyahu said “large percentages” of Hezbollah’s rockets had been destroyed and many of its top leaders had been killed.
Israeli leaders have said the attacks on Hezbollah will not stop until the approximately 60,000 Israelis who have been displaced by the group’s rocket fire can return to their homes near the Lebanese border.
Hezbollah, which began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, a day after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, has said it will not stop attacking Israel until there is a cease-fire in Gaza.
On Wednesday night, the United States, its European allies and several Arab states proposed a three-week cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, warning that the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon were threatening to spiral into an all-out regional war.
Hezbollah has not responded to the proposal, and Mr. Netanyahu did not even acknowledge it in his speech. In a statement issued before his speech, his office said Israel “appreciates the U.S. efforts” to broker a cease-fire in Lebanon and would continue discussions “in the coming days.”
The comments suggested that Mr. Netanyahu was trying to balance demands from the United States, Israel’s most important ally, and from right-wing Israeli lawmakers who help keep his governing coalition in power. They have strongly opposed efforts to negotiate truces with Hamas and Hezbollah.
Although Mr. Netanyahu spoke of establishing diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia and said Israel “seeks peace,” he singled out Iran for special condemnation, saying it was threatening regional stability with its support of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
“I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran: If you strike us we will strike you,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that is true of the entire Middle East.”
The head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ibrahim Azizi, said that Israel had “opened the gates of hell against itself” with its strike south of Beirut on Friday. He said the “axis of resistance” — Hezbollah, Hamas and other regional militias backed by Iran — “will respond with force at the right time.”
In a statement on social media, the Iranian Embassy in Lebanon called the strike “a reprehensible crime” and “a dangerous escalation that changes the rules of the game.” Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was wounded last week when hundreds of wireless devices belonging to Hezbollah members exploded.
Israel hoped that if it were successful in killing top Hezbollah commanders in the strike on Friday, it could avoid a ground invasion of Lebanon, a senior Israeli official told reporters.
Tensions between Iran and Israel have risen sharply amid the escalating violence. But Iran has lately sent mixed signals. The new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, was elected on a promise to improve relations with the West, a point he reinforced in a recent speech to the United Nations.
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