Israel kills elite Hezbollah commanders in Beirut airstrike, IDF says

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Israel said on Friday it had killed senior Hezbollah commanders in an air strike on the militant stronghold south of Beirut, a devastating attack on the group that has raised fears of an all-out war.

Hezbollah special operations commander Ibrahim Aqil was killed along with at least 10 members of the “senior chain of command of the Radwan Force”, an elite unit within the group, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Group confirmed Aqil was killed in an Israeli strike late on Friday, describing him as one of the “greatest leaders”.

Aqil’s death could be considered the heaviest blow Israel has dealt to HezbollahLebanon’s dominant political and military force, since its formation in the early 1980s.

The Radwan Force is the arm of Hezbollah responsible for cross-border operations into Israel and defending southern Lebanon against a ground invasion. Israel has been targeting Radwan for months, with the stated aim of pushing it back from the border.

Targeting senior Hezbollah commanders on such a scale would also be a blow to Iran, which views the Lebanese Hezbollah group as its main proxy and closest ally in the region.

The attack came after Israel announced it was advancing into “new phase” about the nearly year-long conflict with Hezbollah, which had previously been largely confined to the Israel-Lebanon border area.

This would increase pressure on Hezbollah to respond forcefully, even though the force is in disarray after days of repeated attacks on its military capabilities and fears being drawn into an all-out war with a much more elite army.

Hezbollah has not confirmed that Aqil was in the building at the time of the attack. Lebanese authorities said 14 people were killed and 66 injured.

Lebanon’s state news agency reported that an F-35 fighter jet fired four missiles into the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, hitting a residential building. The Israeli military said the commanders were killed while holding a meeting below the building.

The attack capped a week of deadly Hezbollah bombings. communication equipment killed 37 people and injured thousands more. Hezbollah has blamed the attacks on Israel, but the country has not commented directly.

The Israeli airstrike was the second to target a senior Hezbollah commander in southern Beirut since the conflict erupted last October. A July airstrike on a residential building in the capital killed Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah military commander.

Aqil, like Shukr, was one of the group’s earliest founding members and sat on Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, the group’s highest military body, according to four people familiar with Hezbollah’s operations. After Shukr was killed, Aqil took over some of the slain commander’s responsibilities, the people said.

The United States suspects Aqil of involvement in attacks 41 years ago in Beirut on US and French barracks, which killed 307 people, and the US embassy, ​​which killed 63.

Lebanon’s civil defense authority said rescue efforts were still underway on Friday, with people still being pulled from the rubble after two residential buildings collapsed.

Television footage showed burnt-out cars and huge piles of rubble covering a narrow street.

The attack came amid intense gun battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, who have been exchanging fire across the border since the group began launching rockets into Israel on October 8, a day after Hamas’ attack on the Jewish state.

The UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, called the attack “another alarming escalation”. “We are witnessing an extremely dangerous cycle of violence,” she said. “This must stop now.”

On Thursday night, the Israeli military said its jets struck about 100 rocket launchers in Lebanon that were set to fire at Israel “in the near future.” It was one of the heaviest Israeli attacks on Lebanon since the war began.

Hezbollah fired more than 140 rockets into Israeli-controlled territory on Friday, causing fires in several areas, according to the Israeli military. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Following the attack on Beirut, Hezbollah said it had launched more rockets at what it said were defense targets, including a military intelligence headquarters it said was “responsible for the assassinations.”

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Washington did not yet consider a wider war “inevitable”.

“We don’t want to see an escalation. We don’t want to see a second front in this war open up,” Kirby said. “Everything we do is going to be about trying to prevent that outcome.”

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who condemned this week’s “criminal” attacks, said he had requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council. “All communications I received yesterday from senior international officials confirm that the Israeli enemy has crossed a red line,” he said.

Mikati said he would travel to the United States for talks on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly “to affirm that there is still room for a diplomatic solution.”

Additional reporting by Malaika Kanaaneh Tapper in Beirut and Felicia Schwartz in Washington