According to the Israeli army, on Friday, Israel carried out an infrequent airstrike in a very populated area of southern Beirut that resulted in the death of a top Hezbollah military official. It was the bloodiest strike in the capital of Lebanon in a long time. The incident was alleged to have killed at least 12 more people.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the official spokesman for the Israeli military, stated that Ibrahim Akil, the head of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, and ten other Hezbollah agents were killed in the hit on Beirut’s southern Dahiya suburb.
Akil’s death was not immediately confirmed by Hezbollah.
The identity of the other commanders who were purportedly killed in the attack on the densely populated urban neighborhood were not disclosed by the Israeli military. Health officials in Lebanon said that at least 12 persons were killed and 66 others were wounded there. Nine of the wounded, they said, were in serious condition.
While confirming that Akil was meant to be in the damaged structure, a Hezbollah official provided no more details. As a result of his involvement in two terrorist assaults in 1983 that claimed more than 300 lives at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the U.S. Marine Corps barracks, Akil has been sanctioned by the United States and sat on the Jihad Council, the highest military council of Hezbollah.
Video from Lebanon’s local networks showed first responders rummaging through the debris of two collapsed apartment buildings in the Jamous neighborhood, which is only a few kilometers from downtown Beirut—the hub of Hezbollah’s political and security operations.
When the strike began, individuals started leaving their jobs and sending their kids home from school during rush hour.
Israel and Hezbollah have been engaging in cross-border attacks since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, triggering the Israeli military’s devastating offensive in Gaza. The strike on Beirut, the deadliest such Israeli attack on a neighborhood of Beirut since 2006, signaled a major escalation in the past 11 months of cross-border attacks. Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire regularly since then, but the cross-border attacks have largely struck evacuated communities in northern Israel 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. Hagari accused Akil of plotting a series of attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians that stretched over the decades, as well as master-minding an unfulfilled plan to invade northern Israel in a similar way to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks. Last year, the State Department posted a $7 million reward for information leading to Akil’s identification, location, arrest, or conviction.
Following the Israeli airstrike on Beirut, Hezbollah announced two more attacks on northern Israel, one of which it said targeted an intelligence base from which it claimed Israel directed assassinations. The Israeli army ordered residents in parts of the Golan Heights and northern Israel to avoid public gatherings, minimize movements, and stay close to shelters in anticipation of further rocket fire.
Nasrallah vowed to keep up daily strikes on Israel despite this week’s deadly sabotage of its members’ communication devices. In recent days, Israel has moved a powerful fighting force up to the northern border, officials have escalated their rhetoric, and the country’s security cabinet has designated the return of tens of thousands of displaced residents to their homes in northern Israel as an official war goal.
(AP)
