Beirut: The Lebanese health ministry on Saturday said at least 37 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut on the previous day, including three children and seven women. The Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah said 16 of its members were killed in the strikes, including senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and top commander Ahmed Wahbi.
The Israeli army, in posts on X, said the strike hit an underground gathering of Aqil and senior commanders of Hezbollah's elite Radwan forces, and had "almost completely dismantled" Hezbollah's military chain of command. It was the deadliest strike targeting the Lebanese capital since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
The strikes are part of a new cycle of escalation between the enemies that has raised fears of a full-out war erupting in the Middle East, particularly after two separate attacks in Lebanon in which communication devices exploded simultaneously around the country, reportedly killing 39 people and injuring more than 3,400 others. Israel and Hezbollah continued to trade fire on Saturday.
Israel carries out heavy bombardment in Lebanon
Heavy cross-border strikes continued on Saturday, with Israeli warplanes carrying some of its heaviest bombardment in 11 months of fighting across Lebanon's south and Hezbollah claiming rocket attacks on military targets in Israel's north. Israel dealt a crippling blow to Hezbollah after two days of attacks where pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded.
The attacks on communications devices were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement. Hezbollah-aligned transport minister Ali Hamieh told reporters at the scene of Friday's strike that at least 23 people were still missing. "The Israeli enemy is taking the region to war," he said.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who said this week Israel was launching a new phase of war on the northern border, posted on X: "The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes." Israel's military said on Saturday that airspace in northern Israel - from the city of Hadera north - was closed to private flights, but that the measure did not affect international flights.
Hezbollah's Ibrahim Aqil, killed in Beirut strike, was on US wanted list
Ibrahim Aqil was the second top commander of Hezbollah to be killed in the airstrike in the southern suburb of Beirut in as many months, in a major blow to the group's command structure. He was one of the top military officials of the militant group, in charge of its elite forces, and was on Washington's wanted list for years.
Aqil was a member of Hezbollah's highest military body, the Jihad Council, since 2008, and the head of the elite Radwan Forces. The forces also fought in Syria gaining experience in urban warfare and counterinsurgency. Israel has been attempting to push the fighters back from the border. It said that Aqil was part of the group that carried out the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut and that he had directed the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon and held them there during the 1980s.
Meanwhile, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said he was worried about escalation between Israel and Lebanon but that the Israeli killing of the top Hezbollah leader brought justice to the Iran-backed group. “That individual has American blood on his hands and has a rewards for justice price on his head,” Sullivan told reporters on the sidelines of the Quad Summit.
UN urges restraint as war seems imminent
Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in October in sympathy with Palestinians in the nearly year-old Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza. With at least 70 people killed in Lebanon this week, the death toll in the country since October has surpassed 740, the worst since the two sides fought a war in 2006.
The UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine-Hennis Plasschaert, said on Friday the strike in a densely populated area of Beirut's southern suburbs was part of "an extremely dangerous cycle of violence with devastating consequences. This must stop now." While the current conflict has largely been contained to areas at or near the frontier, this week's escalation has heightened concerns that it could widen and further intensify.
(with inputs from agencies)
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