Israel kills senior Hezbollah commander in latest Lebanon attack

On Tuesday evening, Hezbollah confirmed that Israel had killed one of its top commanders, Ibrahim Qobeissi, in an airstrike that rocked the southern suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday.

Lebanese authorities said six people were killed and 15 wounded in the attack on Qobeissi, head of the missile division of the Iran-backed rebel group.

“Qobeissi is an important source of knowledge in the field of missiles and has close ties to senior Hezbollah military leaders,” the Israel Defense Forces said, naming him head of the group’s rocket and missile forces.

Tuesday’s attack marked the latest in a series of killings of senior Hezbollah figures. On Saturday, an Israeli strike in Beirut killed the group’s special operations chief Ibrahim Aqil along with 15 other agents, including what Israel said was “the senior chain of command of the Radwan Force,” an elite unit within Hezbollah.

The air strikes have added pressure to the group, which is enduring one of its deadliest weeks in history after the Israeli military launched a heavy artillery barrage on southern and eastern Lebanon, claiming on Tuesday that it had struck 3,000 Hezbollah targets in the past two days.

At least 558 people have been killed, including 50 children and 94 women, since Israel began its heavy airstrikes on Monday, according to Lebanese authorities. Nearly 2,000 others have been injured, while tens of thousands have fled the bombing in southern Lebanon.

In a statement about the latest airstrike on Beirut, the IDF said Qobeissi joined Hezbollah in the 1980s, later holding several senior positions within the group, including as a senior officer in a unit operating in southern Lebanon.

“In these roles, he was responsible for planning and executing numerous terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers,” the IDF said, claiming that other commanders in the division were with Qobeissi during the attack.

During the attack, Israel attacked a six-story apartment building in Ghobeiry, a densely populated southern suburb of Beirut where Hezbollah is dominant.

A Hezbollah official shared images on social media of the building with its top floor reduced to rubble. Debris was strewn on the street, dust was flying and vehicles were damaged near the site of the attack, videos on social media showed.

The incident comes after the head of the Israeli military said the IDF would continue to intensify its attacks on Hezbollah. IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said on Tuesday that the group “will not be allowed to rest” and pledged to “accelerate its offensive operations.”

The Israeli government has said it will continue the operation, which the IDF calls Northern Arrow and focuses on targeting Hezbollah weapons depots, until residents in the northern region, who have been displaced by months of cross-border fighting, return safely to their homes.

On Tuesday, Hezbollah said it used a new type of missile, the Fadi 3, in an attack on an Israeli military base.

On Monday, the group began framing its attacks as “in defense of Lebanon and its people,” whereas previously it described them as a response to various Israeli attacks as well as pro-Israeli moves. Gaza peopleA Hezbollah official said defending Lebanon had become “the main idea”.

Several international airlines have suspended flights to Beirut and Tel Aviv. US national security spokesman John Kirby urged Americans in Lebanon to leave the country while commercial flights are still operating.

“We want to make sure that there are still trade options for Americans to leave, and they should leave now while those options are still available,” Kirby told ABC News.

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Tuesday evening asked British citizens in Lebanon to “leave immediately”.

Speaking to reporters en route to New York, Starmer said: “We are ramping up our contingency plans. I think you would expect that as the situation escalates.”

The UK government has also ordered 700 British troops to Cyprus as it steps up contingency plans for a mass evacuation of British citizens from Lebanon.

World leaders meeting at the United Nations General Assembly have called for an end to the escalation of hostilities and warned that the fighting was on the brink of becoming an all-out war in the region.

“No country benefits from further escalation in the Middle East,” G7 foreign ministers said.

US President Joe Biden says diplomacy is the “only path” to ending tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.

“All-out war is not in anyone’s interest, and even if the situation escalates, a diplomatic solution is still possible,” Biden said.

Speaking in New York on Tuesday, Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, said Biden’s comments were “not promising” but added that the US remained “the only country that can really make a difference in the Middle East and in relation to Lebanon”.

Biden also reiterated his call for an end to the fighting between Israel and Hamas in GazaHis administration has pushed for a ceasefire there, reportedly linked to tensions on Israel’s northern border.

“Now is the time for the parties to finalize the terms… and end this war,” Biden said.

Cartography by Steven Bernard and Chris Cook