Lebanonโs NNA state news agency on Wednesday reported that several people were killed and many feared trapped in an Israeli air strike on a residential building in the city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon. The NNA reported that rescue workers are trying to help families trapped beneath the rubble. Footage from the scene, verified by Al Jazeera, showed the debris of a collapsed multi-storey building as rescue workers begin to look through rubble there.
Fouad Khreiss, who posted the video, stated that a large number of people are trapped under the rubble and that cries for help can be heard. He urged anyone with a bulldozer to head to the scene immediately.
In the meantime, Israel said it launched airstrikes against Iranian missile launchers and a nuclear research site and Iran struck back against Israel and across the Gulf region, targeting US embassies and disrupting energy supplies and travel.
Four days into a war that President Donald Trump suggested would last several weeks or perhaps longer, nearly 800 people have been killed in Iran, including some Trump said he had considered as possible future leaders of the country.
Explosions rang out on Tuesday in Tehran and in Lebanon, where Israel said it retaliated against Hezbollah militants. The American embassy in Saudi Arabia and the US consulate in the United Arab Emirates came under drone attacks.
Iran has fired dozens of ballistic missiles at Israel, though most of the incoming fire has been intercepted. Eleven people in Israel have been killed since the conflict began. In other developments, the Pentagon identified four US Army Reserve soldiers killed in a drone strike on Sunday at a command centre in Kuwait. The strike also killed two other service members.
The spiralling nature of the war raised questions about when and how it would end. The administration has offered various objectives, including destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, wiping out its navy, preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensuring it cannot continue to support allied armed groups.
While the initial US-Israeli strikes killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Trump urged Iranians to overthrow their government, senior administration officials have since said regime change was not the goal.
Trump on Tuesday seemed to downplay the chances of the war ending Iran’s theocratic rule, saying that “someone from within” the Iranian regime might be the best choice to take power once the US-Israel campaign is finished.
Speaking Tuesday from the Oval Office, Trump said Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s toppled shah, is not someone that his administration has considered in depth to take over. As far as possible leaders inside Iran, “the people we had in mind are dead,” Trump said. “I guess the worst case would be do this, and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen,” Trump said.
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