BEIRUT (news agencies) — An Israeli official confirmed that the Israeli military targeted Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah military official, in Friday’s airstrike on Beirut.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Akil was killed in the Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs that killed at least three people and wounded 17 others, according to Lebanese health officials. The Israeli official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing a behind the scenes security matter.
An official close to the Hezbollah militant group, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to brief the media, confirmed to media that Akil was supposed to be in the building when it was targeted Friday. The official couldn’t confirm if Akil was killed.
Akil has served as the head of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force and Jihad Council, the group’s highest military body. The U.S. State Department has sanctioned Akil for his alleged role in carrying out the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and that he had directed the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon and held them there during the 1980s.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. news agencies’s earlier story follows below.
BEIRUT (news agencies) — An Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday killed at least three people and wounded more than a dozen others, Lebanese health officials said, the first Israeli attack on Lebanon’s capital in months that came shortly after Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets.
Israel announced the strike, but didn’t immediately specify the target in Beirut’s crowded southern suburbs, where Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group holds sway. An Israeli officials
Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported that at least three people were killed and 17 others wounded as local networks broadcast footage of wounded people being pulled from the ruins of a flattened building and ambulances rushing to the scene of the strike.
The strike in Dahiyeh, just kilometers from downtown Beirut, hit during rush hour, as people were leaving work and students headed home from school.
The escalation came as the region awaited the revenge promised by the militant group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, for this week’s mass bombing attack on pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members.
Israel’s rare strike on the Beirut suburbs came after Hezbollah pounded Israel with 140 rockets, which the Israeli military said came in three waves targeting sites along the ravaged border with Lebanon.
Following the attacks, the Israeli military said that it had struck areas across southern Lebanon targeting Hezbollah infrastructure, but didn’t provide details of damage.
Hezbollah said that its attacks had targeted several sites along the border with Katyusha rockets, including multiple air defense bases as well as the headquarters of an Israeli armored brigade they said they’d struck for the first time.
The Israeli military said that 120 missiles were launched at areas of the Golan Heights, Safed and the Upper Galilee, some of which were intercepted. Fire crews were working to extinguish blazes caused by pieces of debris that fell to the ground in several areas, the military said.
The military didn’t say whether any missiles had hit targets or caused any casualties.
Another 20 missiles were shot at the areas of Meron and Netua, and most fell in open areas, the military said, adding that no injuries were reported.
Hezbollah said that the rockets were in retaliation for Israeli strikes on villages and homes in southern Lebanon, not two days of attacks widely blamed on Israel that set off explosives in thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies.
On Thursday, Israel said its military had struck “hundreds of rocket launcher barrels” in southern Lebanon, saying that they “were ready to be used in the immediate future to fire toward Israeli territory.”
The army also ordered residents in parts of the Golan Heights and northern Israel to avoid public gatherings, minimize movements and stay close to shelters in anticipation of the rocket fire that eventually came Friday.
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged near-daily fire since Oct. 8, a day after the Israel-Hamas war’s opening salvo, but Friday’s rocket barrages were heavier than normal.
American Dollar Exchange Rate