Deadliest Israeli strike yet on central Beirut leaves gruesome scenes

Stepping through the charred ruins of her neighbourhood in central Beirut, Lebanese seamstress Laila Amayrad watched bulldozers pick through a building flattened by an Israeli strike days ago, hoping her friends' bodies would be found. The massive Israeli strike hit the densely populated Basta Fawqa neighbourhood in the Lebanese capital just before dawn on Saturday, killing at least 29 people including children, making it the deadliest bombardment of the city in the last year. With tears in her eyes, she counted nine of the dead as friends, neighbours or clients, some of whom had been hosting relatives displaced by Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon.