Israel destroyed an apartment building in southern Beirut in an air strike photographed in rare detail.

Residents and reporters gathered 200 metres away from an apartment complex after Israel gave warnings in Arabic about targeting “Hezbollah facilities”.

About 40 minutes after the warnings, Israel dropped what appears to be a 2,000-pound MK-84 bomb on the base of the eight-storey building.

Footage and images from the scene showed two bombs hitting one immediately after another, suggesting two missiles hit the building’s ground floor in Beirut’s Ghobeiry neighbourhood.

Israel is known to target the ground floor of apartment buildings, a tactic designed to bring the whole structure down in one effective blast.