Israeli strike targets senior Hizbollah commander in Beirut

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Israel targeted a senior Hizbollah commander on Friday in an air strike on the group’s stronghold in southern Beirut, sharply escalating hostilities between the two sides and fuelling fears of a full-blown war.

The target was Hizbollah’s operations commander, Ibrahim Aqil, according to people familiar with the matter, although it is not yet known if he was in the building or among the casualties.

Lebanon’s state-run news agency reported that an F-35 warplane launched four missiles into the Jamous area of Dahiyeh, striking a residential building.

It capped a week of deadly mass detonations of the Iran-backed militant group’s communications devices that killed 32 people and injured thousands more. Hizbollah has blamed the attacks on Israel, which has not directly commented.

The Israeli strike on Friday is the second targeting a senior Hizbollah commander in southern Beirut since the conflict erupted last October. A July strike on a residential building in Dahiyeh killed Fuad Shukr, Hizbollah’s top military commander.

Aqil, like Shukr, was one of the group’s earliest founding members and sat on Hizbollah’s Jihad Council, the group’s highest military body, according to four people familiar with the group’s operations. Hizbollah did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Aqil.

At least three people were killed and 17 more injured, Lebanon’s ministry of health said. That number was likely to climb as the strike took place during rush hour in a densely packed neighbourhood, with people still being pulled out of the rubble.

Footage circulating on social media showed burnt-out cars and enormous fires where a building would have stood, indicating a substantial strike. Broadcasting live from the scene, Hizbollah’s Al-Manar TV showed a building with its front facade completely blown off.

The strike in Beirut came amid intensifying salvos between Israeli forces and Hizbollah, which have been exchanging cross-border fire since Hizbollah started launching rockets at Israel in support of Hamas on October 8, the day after the Palestinian militant group’s attack on Israel.

On Thursday night, the Israeli military said that its jets struck around 100 launchers in Lebanon with about 1,000 barrels that were due to be used to launch rockets at Israel “in the immediate future”. It was one of Israel’s heaviest rounds of strike on Lebanon since the start of the war.

On Friday, Hizbollah fired around 140 rockets at Israeli-controlled territory, according to the Israeli military, sparking fires in several areas. There were no immediate reports of casualties.