An explosion rocked Beirut's seafront corniche on Wednesday, killing at least four people near a military beach club, security sources said. They said several people were wounded in the blast, which tore through a street near an amusement park and the Bain Militaire sporting club. Television pictures showed a car ablaze and shattered windows of a nearby restaurant.
The explosion was the latest in a series of recent bombings in Lebanon, where the army is battling militants at a Palestinian refugee camp in the north of the country.
Two Lebanese soldiers were killed in fresh fighting at the Nahr al-Bared camp on Wednesday, security sources said. Al Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam militants attacked Lebanese army posts set up at newly seized territory in the outskirts of Nahr al-Bared camp overnight and in early morning, they said.
One of the dead was an officer shot by a sniper, they said. Army units, which had seized two militant positions in heavy fighting on Tuesday, responded by firing dozens of 155 mm artillery rounds at the camp. Black smoke rose above the camp's cinderblock buildings as thuds of explosions rocked the area.
The battle for the camp, Lebanon's bloodiest internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war, has killed 144 people, including 62 soldiers, more than 50 militants and 32 civilians, since it erupted on May 20. The Lebanese authorities have demanded the unconditional surrender of the gunmen, who have vowed to fight to the death.
Most of Nahr al-Bared's estimated 40,000 refugees fled to other camps in the early days of the battle. But a few hundreds more have left in recent days.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement released in Beirut the security forces were detaining and physically abusing some Palestinian men fleeing the camp. It quoted some of them speaking of beatings and food deprivation.