September 8, 2024
BEIRUT (AP) — Israel on Tuesday carried out a rare strike on Beirut, which it said killed a top Hezbollah commander who was allegedly behind a weekend rocket attack that killed 12 young people in the Golan Heights. The strike in the Lebanese capital killed at least one woman and two children and wounded dozens of people.
Hezbollah did not immediately confirm the commander’s death. The strike came amid escalating hostilities with the Lebanese militant group. An Israeli official said the target was Fouad Shukur, a top Hezbollah military commander whom the U.S. blames for planning and launching the deadly 1983 bombing of a barracks in the Lebanese capital that killed 241 U.S. Marines.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the details of the strike with the media. Shukur is also suspected in other strikes that killed Israeli civilians.
Though Hezbollah issued a rare denial of involvement in the rocket attack Saturday in the town of Majdal Shams, Israel is holding the militant group responsible. "Hezbollah crossed a red line,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant posted on the platform X shortly after Tuesday's strike.
The two sides have exchanged near-daily strikes for the past 10 months against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, but they have previously kept the conflict at a low level that was unlikely to escalate into full-on war.
Lebanon's public health ministry said Tuesday's strike in a southern suburb of Beirut wounded 74 people, some of them seriously.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that the strike was carried out with a drone that launched three rockets.
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the Israeli attack, saying it hit a few meters from one of the largest hospitals in the capital.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately release a statement, but minutes after the strike sent a photo of the prime minister with his national security adviser and other officials.
The airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik — a crowded urban neighborhood where Hezbollah has political and security operations but which is also full of small shops and apartment buildings — damaged several buildings.
The strike hit an apartment building near to a hospital, collapsing half of the targeted building and severely damaging one next to it. The hospital sustained minor damages, while the surrounding streets were littered with debris and broken glass.
The last time Israel targeted Beirut was in January, when an airstrike killed a top Hamas official, Saleh Arouri. That strike was the first time Israel had hit Beirut since the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.
Israel had been expected to retaliate for the strike in Majdal Shams, but diplomats had said in recent days that they expected the response to stay within the boundaries of the ongoing low-level conflict between Hezbollah and Israel without provoking all-out war.
