Israel began a series of strikes on central Beirut on Tuesday evening, security sources told Reuters, after issuing its first-ever evacuation orders for four areas inside the city itself, hours before a ceasefire was expected to be announced.

An Israeli strike smashed into a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut causing a huge explosion after a warning was issued by the Israeli military on X. The strike comes as cease-fire negotiations continue between Israel and Lebanon.

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.

At least 11 people have been killed and several others injured after an Israeli strike flattened a multi-story residential building in central Beirut overnight, Lebanese officials said.

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 20 people in central Beirut on Saturday, Lebanon's health ministry said, one of the deadliest strikes on the heart of the capital since Israel began its assault against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in September.

The strikes, which destroyed an eight-story building and left a crater in the ground, were the fourth in Beirut in less than a week.

The death toll from an Israeli strike on a densely populated area in central Beirut on Saturday has reached 29, Lebanon's Health Ministry said on Sunday. Another 67 people were injured, the ministry said,