Twenty-two people have been killed and 117 injured in Israeli air strikes on central Beirut on Thursday evening, Lebanon's health ministry said. BBC reporters heard loud explosions echoing from the site of the strikes in Bachoura, a small Shia area in the capital. Rescuers were seen digging through rubble at the scene.

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli forces fired at a watchtower used by U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon on Friday, injuring two, a U.N. source said, the third day in a row peacekeepers have reported Israeli fire at their positions as Israel wages war on Hezbollah.