“Israeli warplanes launched a strike on the Mar Elias area,” the official National News Agency said of a densely packed residential and shopping district BEIRUT: Lebanon said an Israeli strike on central Beirut’s Mar Elias district killed two people, the second such raid targeting the capital Sunday after an earlier strike killed a Hezbollah official. Israel has been heavily bombing Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, since all-out war erupted on September 23, but attacks on central Beirut have been rarer. “Israeli warplanes launched a strike on the Mar Elias area,” the official National News Agency said of a densely packed residential and shopping district that also houses people displaced by the conflict. The health ministry said the strike killed two people and wounded 13, raising an earlier toll of one dead and nine wounded. AFP journalists heard the sound of explosions and then sirens amid a strong acrid smell of burning. AFP images showed a blaze at the site that firefighters were trying to extinguish. A Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity, told AFP that the strike hit an electronics store in Mar Elias, without providing further details. The NNA said the strike “targeted a Jamaa Islamiya center,” referring to a Sunni Muslim group allied to Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. But Jamaa Islamiya lawmaker Imad Hout told AFP that “no center or institution affiliated with the group is located in the area targeted by the strike, and no member of the group was targeted.” Earlier Sunday, a Lebanese security source said Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif was killed in a strike on central Beirut’s Ras Al-Nabaa district. Previous strikes claimed by Israel on Beirut’s southern suburbs have killed senior Hezbollah officials, including its leader Hassan Nasrallah in late September. In the wake of Sunday’s strikes, the education minister said schools and higher education institutions in the Beirut area would remain closed for two days.