Israel says its strike on Beirut killed top Hezbollah military official

BEIRUT (AP):

Israel launched a rare airstrike that killed a senior Hezbollah military official in a densely populated southern Beirut neighbourhood on Friday, the Israeli army said. It was the deadliest such attack on Lebanon’s capital in years, with Lebanese health authorities reporting at least 12 people killed and dozens more wounded in the attack.

The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the strike on Beirut’s southern Dahiya district targeted and killed Ibrahim Akil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, as well as 10 other Hezbollah operatives.

Hezbollah did not immediately confirm the claim of Akil’s killing, which came as a flurry of tit-for-tat bombardments between the enemies raised fears of a full-out war erupting in the Middle East.

The Israeli military did not elaborate on the identities of the other commanders allegedly killed in the strike on the crowded urban neighbourhood. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least 12 people were killed and 66 others were wounded.

It was not immediately clear if the ministry’s death toll included Akil. Nine of the wounded were in serious condition, it said.

A Hezbollah official confirmed that Akil was supposed to be in the building that was hit but gave no further information. Akil has served on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council, and has been sanctioned by the United States for being involved in two terrorist attacks in 1983 that killed more than 300 people at the US Embassy in Beirut and the US Marine Corps barracks.

Lebanese networks broadcast footage showing first responders combing through the rubble of two flattened apartment buildings in the Jamous area, where Hezbollah conducts many of its political and security operations.

Friday’s airstrike – apparently the deadliest such attack on a neighbourhood of Beirut since Israel and Hezbollah fought a bloody, monthlong war in 2006 – hit during rush hour, as people were leaving work and children heading home from school.

“The attack in Lebanon is to protect Israel,” Hagari said at a news conference following the strike, describing Akil as one of Hezbollah militants responsible for the group’s regular rocket fire into Israel.

Hours earlier on Friday, Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets as the region awaited the revenge promised by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah over this week’s mass bombing attack on pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members.

Hezbollah portrayed the heavier-than-normal bombardment as a response to past Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, not as revenge for the explosions of Hezbollah pagers on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed at least 20 people and wounded thousands in sophisticated attacks widely attributed to Israel.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in those attacks, which signaled a major escalation in the past 11 months of simmering conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire regularly since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel ignited the Israeli military’s devastating offensive in Gaza. But previous cross-border attacks have largely struck areas in northern Israel that had been evacuated and less-populated parts of southern Lebanon.

The last time Israel hit Beirut was in a July airstrike that killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.

Speaking to journalists, Hagari described both Shukr and Akil as two military officials closest to Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.

He accused Akil of plotting a series of attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians that stretched over decades, as well as master-minding a never-realised plan to invade northern Israel in a similar way to the Hamas-led October 7 attacks.

Last year, the State Department posted a US$7 million reward for information leading to Akil’s identification, location, arrest or conviction and said he also directed the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s.

Following the Israeli airstrike on Beirut, Hezbollah announced two more attacks on northern Israel, one of which it said targeted an intelligence base from where it claimed Israel directed assassinations.

It was the latest in a string of rocket barrages claimed by Hezbollah this week targeting Israeli military sites. Israel has reported limited damage – including fires sparked by fallen shards of shrapnel – and no casualties.