Israel carried out a rare airstrike in a densely populated southern Beirut area on Friday, killing a senior Hezbollah military leader, in the Lebanese capital’s deadliest airstrike in decades, with Lebanese authorities reporting that at least 14 people were killed and dozens wounded.
Israeli military spokesman Maj. Gen. Daniel Hagari said the attack in Beirut’s southern Dahiya neighborhood killed Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force commander Ibrahim Akil and 10 Hezbollah operatives.
“We will continue to pursue the enemy to protect our citizens, including in Dahiyah, Beirut,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, describing the Israeli attack on Akil as part of a “new phase of the war.”
Hours later, Hezbollah confirmed Akil’s death. In a statement, the Lebanese militant group described him as a “great jihadi leader” and said he “joined the procession of his great martyred brothers after living a blessed life full of jihad, labor, injuries, sacrifices, risks, challenges, achievements and victories.”
Akil, a member of Hezbollah’s top military wing, the Jihad Council, was under U.S. sanctions for his alleged role in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut that killed more than 300 people.
Last year, the U.S. State Department announced a $7 million reward for information leading to his identity, location, arrest or conviction for his role in the Lebanese embassy bombings and the hostage crisis between American and German citizens in the 1980s.
The attack comes amid growing fears that renewed tensions between the rivals could lead to an all-out war in the Middle East.
Hours before the Israeli attack, Hezbollah fired 140 rockets into northern Israel, where its leader Hassan Nasrallah awaited promised retaliation for a mass explosion this week of pagers belonging to members of a Shiite militant group.
The Israeli military has not revealed the identities of the other Hezbollah commanders said to have been killed in the attack on the crowded neighborhood just a few kilometres from central Beirut.
The Lebanese health ministry said the attack killed at least 14 people and wounded 66. The Israeli army said Akil had been meeting with other militants in the basement, and nine of the injured were in critical condition.
Local Lebanese networks broadcast footage of emergency workers searching through the rubble of a collapsed high-rise building in the Jamous neighborhood in the heart of Dahiya, where Hezbollah conducts much of its political and security operations.
Rescue efforts continued late into the night on Friday, hours after the attack, with rescuers struggling to clear rubble and reach the building’s basement where many of the bodies were apparently found.
Friday’s airstrike was the deadliest to hit a Beirut neighborhood since Israel and Hezbollah fought a bloody, month-long war in 2006, and struck during rush hour as people returned from work and children returned home from school.
Crowds gathered at Beirut’s St. Therese Hospital, near the site of the airstrike, to donate blood for those injured in the attack.
“We are all in the same situation so it is my duty to donate blood,” said Hussein Harakeh, who was waiting in line to donate blood.
Gallant said he briefed senior military officials from Israel about the attack and vowed to continue the offensive against Hezbollah “until we achieve our goal of seeing the people of northern Israel return safely to their homes.”
The attack came after Hezbollah launched its most intense bombing campaign in northern Israel in nearly a year of fighting, primarily targeting Israeli military facilities. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted most of the Katyusha rockets. The few that got through caused small fires but little damage and no Israeli casualties.
Hezbollah said the recent wave of rocket attacks was in retaliation for earlier Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, and not for mass explosions of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed at least 37 people and injured 2,900, including two children, attacks widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in this week’s sophisticated attack, but it signals a major escalation in the conflict that has been simmering along the Israeli-Lebanese border for the past 11 months.
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged frequent fire since Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7 and the Israeli military launched a devastating offensive in the Gaza Strip, but cross-border attacks so far have mainly hit displaced areas in northern Israel and sparsely populated areas in southern Lebanon.
The last time Israel attacked Beirut was in an airstrike in July that killed senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr.
“The attack on Lebanon is to defend Israel,” Haghari said at a press conference after Friday’s attack, adding that both Shukr and Akil were the military officials closest to Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.
Hagari also accused Akil of planning a series of attacks against Israeli forces and civilians going back decades, including an unfulfilled plan to invade northern Israel in a manner similar to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack.
Hezbollah announced attacks in northern Israel after Israeli airstrikes on Friday, two of which it said targeted intelligence bases it said Israel had ordered the assassinations.
Israel remains on edge, with Nasrallah vowing on Thursday to continue attacks on Israel despite a humiliating “blow” suffered by Hezbollah over the destruction of its communications equipment.
“We are in a tense period,” Haghari told reporters on Friday. “We are on high alert both offensively and defensively.”
Israel recently sent heavy combat forces to its northern border, made it its official war objective to force tens of thousands of displaced people back to their homes in northern Israel, and ordered residents along the Israeli-Lebanese border to stay near bomb shelters. Hezbollah has insisted it will only stop attacks if there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
Hamas, which continues to fight Israel in Gaza, condemned the Israeli attack targeting Akil as a “new crime” and a “violation of Lebanese sovereignty.”
While the world’s attention is focused on rising tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, Palestinian casualties in the besieged Gaza Strip continue to rise.
Palestinian health officials reported that 15 people, including children, were killed in Israeli military attacks early on Friday that targeted a house and a group of people on the street in Gaza City. At least 41,000 Palestinians have already been killed in Israel’s military operations in Gaza, according to the Gaza Strip Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
In response to a request for comment on the latest Gaza offensive, the Israeli military insisted on Friday that it had “taken all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian casualties” and accused Hamas of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas.
On October 7, Israel launched a bombing and invasion of the Gaza Strip in retaliation for Hamas killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages in southern Israel. The attacks caused extensive damage and forced about 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million to flee.