Hezbollah yesterday said that a second senior commander was among 16 fighters killed in an Israeli airstrike on its Beirut stronghold the previous day, highlighting the scale of the blow to its military leadership.
Israel said Friday’s strike on the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital killed the head of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, Ibrahim Aqil, and several other commanders.
Coming hot on the heels of sabotage attacks on communications devices this week that killed 37 people in Hezbollah strongholds, the strike raised new questions about the Iran-backed group’s security arrangements and dealt a heavy blow to its fighters’ morale.
Photo: Reuters
Hezbollah named the second commander as Ahmed Mahmud Wahbi, saying he had headed the group’s operations against Israel from the onset of the Gaza war in October last year until the start of this year.
Confirming the death of Aqil, who was wanted by the US for involvement in the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, Hezbollah hailed him as “one of its great leaders.”
Agence France-Presse journalists said Friday’s strike left a massive crater and gutted the lower floors of a high-rise building.
It was the second Israeli strike on the Hezbollah military leadership since the start of the Gaza war. An Israeli strike on Beirut in July killed Fuad Shukr, a top operations chief for the movement.
It also followed sabotage attacks on pagers and two-way radios used by Hezbollah on Tuesday and Wednesday, which killed 37 people and raised fears of a wider war.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said the world body was “very concerned about the heightened escalation” and called for “maximum restraint” from all sides.
The Israeli military said it conducted a “targeted strike” against Aqil, which a source close to Hezbollah said killed 16 Radwan Force members.
Aqil was “at a meeting with commanders” when he was killed, the source said.
The US had offered a US$7 million reward for information on Aqil, describing him as a “principal member” of an organization that claimed the 1983 bombing that killed 63 people.
At least 31 people were killed, including three children and seven women, in Friday’s strike, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health told a news conference yesterday.
Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters have battled each other along the Israel-Lebanon border since Hamas militants triggered the war in Gaza with their attack on Oct. 7 last year.
The focus of Israel’s firepower for nearly a year has been on Gaza, but with Hamas much weakened, that focus has moved to Israel’s northern border.
Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said Israel’s “enemies” would find no refuge, not even in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
After the strike, Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that Israel was “not aiming for a broad escalation in the region.”
Hamas called it a “brutal and terrorist aggression” and an “escalation.”
Additional reporting by Reuters
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