Israel kills top Hezbollah figure in Beirut strike

Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander and other senior figures in the Lebanese movement in an airstrike on Beirut yesterday, vowing to press on with a new military campaign until it is able to secure the area around the Lebanese border.
The Israeli military and a security source in Lebanon said Ibrahim Aqil had been killed along with other senior members of an elite Hezbollah unit in the airstrike, sharply escalating the year-long conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group, reports Reuters.
The Israeli military described Aqil as the acting commander of the Radwan special forces unit, and said it had killed him along with around 10 other senior commanders as they held a meeting. Aqil sat on Hezbollah’s top military council, sources in Lebanon told Reuters.
The strike inflicted another blow on Hezbollah after two days of attacks on the group in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded, killing 37 people and wounding thousands. Those attacks were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed or denied its involvement.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Friday’s strike killed 12 people and wounded 66 others, nine of whom were in critical condition. Rescue teams were searching for people under the rubble of two buildings, the country’s civil defence service said.
On Thursday night, Israeli fighter jets pounded Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, destroying 1,000 rocket launcher barrels that were set to be used to immediately fire toward Israeli territory, the military said.
UN peacekeepers in Lebanon urged immediate de-escalation.
Hezbollah said its fighters had fired a guided missile at Israeli troops in Metula, an Israeli town on the border targeted frequently by the Lebanese group over the last year.
Israeli radio reported that residents of several towns in northern Israel were instructed by the military’s Homefront Command to stay close to their shelters.
Meanwhile, some Palestinians displaced by the Israeli assault on Gaza said they feared their temporary beachside camp would be inundated by high waves.
Palestinian health officials said shelling by Israeli tanks killed eight people and wounded several others in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central area of Gaza, and six others were killed in an airstrike on a house in Gaza City.
In the northern town of Beit Hanoun, an Israeli strike on a car killed and wounded several Palestinians, medics said. It was not clear how many of the casualties were combatants and how many were civilians.
In the southern city of Rafah, where the Israeli army has been operating since May, tanks advanced further to the northwest area backed by aircraft, residents said.
They also reported heavy fire and explosions echoing in the eastern areas of the city, where Israeli forces blew up several houses, according to residents and Hamas media.