Israel launched a rare airstrike that killed a Hezbollah military officer in a densely populated area south of Beirut on Friday. It was the worst such strike in the Lebanese capital in decades, with Lebanese authorities reporting at least 14 people dead and dozens injured in the attack.
The chief spokesman of the Israeli army, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the strike in Beirut’s southern district of Dahiya killed Ibrahim Akil, the commander of the Hezbollah elite Radwan Force, and 10 other Hezbollah members.
“We will continue to go after our enemies to protect our citizens, even in Dahiya, Beirut,” said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, describing the Israeli strike that targeted Akil as part of “a new phase of the war.”
Hours later, Hezbollah confirmed Akil’s death. In a statement, the Lebanese army described Akil as “a great jihadist leader” and said that he “joined the procession of his brothers, the great leaders of the martyrs, after a blessed life full of jihad, work, wounds, sacrifices, dangers, challenges, successes, and and victory.”
Akil served on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council. He was punished by the United States for his alleged involvement in the 1983 bombing that killed more than 300 people at the American Embassy in Beirut and at a US Marine Corps base.
Last year, the US State Department posted a $7 million reward for information leading to his identification, location, arrest or conviction, revealing his role in the bombings and taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s.
The strike came as a new round of escalation between the adversaries raised fears of an all-out war in the Middle East.
Hours before the Israeli strike, Hezbollah hit northern Israel with 140 rockets as the region awaited retaliation promised by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah over this week’s explosion of pagers by members of the Shiite sect.
The Israeli military did not release the details of the other Hezbollah commanders who were said to have been killed in its strike on a populated area a few kilometers from downtown Beirut.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least 14 people were killed and 66 others wounded in the attack, which leveled a building where Israeli soldiers said Akil was meeting with other soldiers in the basement. Nine of the injured are in critical condition, the Ministry said.
Local Lebanese networks broadcast images showing first responders sifting through the rubble of a collapsed high-rise in the Jamous area of ​​central Dahiya, where Hezbollah conducts most of its political and security operations.
Rescue operations continued late Friday, hours after the attack, as first responders struggled to clear debris to get to the bottom of the building where dozens of bodies were found.
Friday’s airstrike – the worst such attack in the Beirut area since Israel and Hezbollah fought a bloody, month-long war in 2006 – struck at rush hour, as people were leaving work and children returning home from school.
At Beirut’s St. Therese near the scene of the plane attack, crowds of people came out in large numbers to donate blood to those injured in the incident.
“We are all in this situation, so it is my responsibility,” said Hussein Harake, who came out of line to donate blood.
In Israel, Gallant said he informed senior military officials about the strike and vowed that Israel will continue to fight Hezbollah “until we achieve our goal, to ensure that communities in northern Israel return to their homes safely.”
The strike comes after Hezbollah launched one of its most intense offensives in northern Israel in a year of fighting, mostly targeting Israeli military positions. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system has intercepted many Katyusha rockets. The few that broke through set off small fires but caused little damage and no Israeli casualties.
Hezbollah described its latest wave of rocket salvos as a response to previous Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon – not in retaliation for heavy blasts by Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed at least 37 people – including two children – and injured. Another 2,900 in an attack called Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in this week’s complex attack, which marked the biggest escalation in the past 11 months of unrest on the Israel-Lebanon border.
Israel and Hezbollah have been trading arms regularly since the October 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel and the start of the Israeli military offensive in Gaza. But previous cross-border attacks have mostly hit the depopulated areas of northern Israel and the sparsely populated areas of southern Lebanon.
The last time Israel hit Beirut was in the July airstrike that killed senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur.
“The attack on Lebanon is to protect Israel,” Hagari said at a press conference following Friday’s strike, describing both Shukr and Akil as two military officials who are very close to Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.
Hagari also accused Akil of orchestrating a series of attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians over the past decades, including an unprecedented plan to attack northern Israel in a similar fashion to the October 7 attack led by Hamas.
After Friday’s airstrikes in Israel, Hezbollah announced attacks in northern Israel, two of which it said targeted an intelligence center where it says Israel directed the killings.
Israel remains on edge, with Nasrallah vowing on Thursday to continue strikes in Israel despite the humiliating “scourge” he said Hezbollah suffered with the destruction of its communications equipment.
“We are in a tense moment,” Hagari told reporters on Friday. “We are prepared and alert offensively and defensively.”
In recent days, Israel has sent a powerful army to the northern border, designated as the objective of the official war to return tens of thousands of homeless residents to their homes in northern Israel and ordered residents near the border of Israel and Lebanon to stay close to the bomb. shelters. Hezbollah has maintained that it will cease fire only if there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
Hamas, which continues to fight Israel in Gaza, has condemned the Israeli strike against Akil as “a new crime” and a “violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty.”
Even as the world watched the escalation of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, the killing of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip continued to increase.
Palestinian health authorities early Friday reported that 15 people, including children, were killed in Israeli strikes targeting a family home and a group of people on a street in Gaza City. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza-based Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
Responding to a request for comment on the latest Gaza strikes, the Israeli army insisted on Friday that it had taken “possible measures to minimize civilian casualties” and accused Hamas of putting civilians at risk by operating in the settlements.
Israel’s bombing raids and attacks on the Gaza Strip – launched in retaliation by Hamas killed 1,200 people and captured 250 people in southern Israel on October 7 – have caused massive damage and displaced nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.