BEIRUT (Dispatches) -- A
 massive airstrike martyred at least 15 people in central Beirut on Saturday and 13 others were killed in attacks northeast of the Lebanese capital, the health ministry said, as Israel pressed its aggression against Lebanon. 
Eight of the victims, four of them children, were martyred in a strike on the village of Chimstar and five people died in an attack on the village of Bodai, the ministry said. Both villages are in the Baalbek district.
In Beirut, an eight-storey building was struck with four missiles, including bunker-penetrating types designed to hit underground targets, said a Lebanese security source.
 The strike happened without warning at about 04:00 (02:00 GMT) on Saturday, and was an attempt to assassinate a senior Hezbollah official, Israeli media reported.
The attack was heard and felt across the city, and destroyed at least one eight-storey residential building in the densely populated Basta district.
At the site of the Israeli strike in central Beirut, Amin Chirri, a member of parliament representing Hezbollah, said there had been no Hezbollah leader in the building that was struck.
Rescuers searched through rubble, in an area of the city known for its antique shops.
It was the fourth Israeli airstrike this week targeting a central area of Beirut, in contrast to the bulk of Israel’s attacks on the capital region, which have hit the southern suburbs.  
“It was a very horrible explosion. All the windows and glasses were over me, my wife and my children. My home now is a battlefield,” said 55-year-old Ali Nassar, who lived in a nearby building.
“Even if one person is hiding here… Should you destroy buildings where people are sleeping inside? Is it necessary to kill all the people for one person? Or we’re not humans? That’s what I’m asking.” 
Also on Saturday, the Zionist regime carried out further airstrikes on the Dahieh, the area in southern Beirut.
Israeli attacks have also hit the south, where an Israeli ground invasion is advancing, and the eastern Bekaa Valley.
A man whose family was hurt in the strike in central Beirut tried to comfort a traumatized woman outside a hospital. Car windows were shattered.
“There was dust and wrecked houses, people running and screaming, they were running, my wife is in hospital, my daughter is in hospital, my aunt is in the hospital,” said the man, Nemir Zakariya, who held up a picture of his daughter.

“This is the little one, and my son also got hurt - this is my daughter, she is in the American University (of Beirut Medical Centre), this is what happened.”
Separately, at least five people were martyred and two wounded in an Israeli strike on Roum village in southern Lebanon on Saturday, according to the Lebanese state news agency.
Israel launched a major invasion against Lebanon in September, following nearly a year of cross-border hostilities ignited by the Gaza war, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
Since October 2023, at least 3,645 people have been martyred and 15,355 injured, Lebanon’s health ministry said.  
Hezbollah and the Lebanese government say the Zionist regime is indiscriminately bombing that kills civilians.  
Hezbollah strikes in the same period have killed more than 100 Zionists in northern occupied territories and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. They include more than 70 soldiers killed in strikes in northern Israel and the Golan Heights and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israel.
Hezbollah confronted the Israeli occupation forces across the country’s southern areas and border villages, especially in Khiyam.
In a statement on Saturday, the Lebanese resistance movement said its fighters engaged in combat with Israeli forces in Al-Bayada, killing and wounding several Israeli soldiers.
Hezbollah also reported a rocket attack against a group of Israeli soldiers in northern settlement of Hanita after “monitoring” their movements.
Additionally, Israeli Channel 12 reported that Hezbollah launched several missiles towards the Al-Mutala region in Upper Galilee. Several buildings were reportedly damaged in the strikes.
The resistance group also “intensively” targeted with missiles and drones the gatherings of Israeli soldiers in a number of settlements and bases in Haifa, Acre and the occupied Golan Heights.
The media reports said rocket impacts were documented in a factory in Kiryat Ata, north of Haifa.
A U.S. mediator travelled to Lebanon and Israel this week in an effort to secure a ceasefire. The envoy, Amos Hochstein, indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut, before going to meet Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and war minister Israel Katz.