It was the third strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, claimed or attributed to Israel since the Iranian-backed Lebanese Islamist movement opened up the southern Lebanese front nearly a year ago, “in support” of the Palestinian Hamas in its war against Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Ibrahim Aqil, alias Tahsin, was wanted by the United States for his role in the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April 1983, which killed 63 people, and of U.S. Marines in October 1983, which killed 241 servicemen.
In a statement, the ministry said the toll had “risen to 12 dead and 66 wounded, including nine in critical condition.” Israel claims to have eliminated a dozen Hezbollah commanders, including the head of an elite unit. A previous toll put the death toll at nine.
Following the spectacular explosions, attributed to Israel, of transmission devices used by members of Hezbollah on Tuesday and Wednesday, the exchange of fire has intensified since Thursday between the Israeli army, which carried out dozens of strikes in southern Lebanon, and the Islamist movement.
The military said Friday that about 140 rockets had been fired from Lebanon toward Israel by midday. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for rocket attacks on several Israeli military sites, including an intelligence base.
In southern Lebanon, residents of border towns described shelling the night before “of an intensity never seen before” in the past year.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday that Israel would receive “a terrible punishment” after the explosions of the transmission devices.
Israel has not commented on the attack, which took place in Hezbollah strongholds in the southern suburbs of Beirut, as well as in southern and eastern Lebanon, and left 37 dead and 2,931 injured in two days.
The UN Security Council is due to hold an emergency meeting on Friday following the attack, which has further rekindled fears of a conflagration in the Middle East.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will delay his planned trip to the United States due to the situation in the north of the country, an official said.
Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel after intense bombardment
A “terrifying” scene
On Thursday evening, Israel stepped up its air raids in southern Lebanon, saying it had targeted Hezbollah rocket launchers and struck “around 100 launchers” and other infrastructure “representing around 1,000 cannons.”
According to the Lebanese news agency ANI, the Israeli air force has struck the region at least 52 times.
“I counted more than 50 raids,” said Elie Rmeih, a 45-year-old trader from the town of Marjayoun, whose house is located in an exposed area.
He described “a terrifying scene that was unlike anything we have seen” since cross-border firefights between Hezbollah and the Israeli army began in October 2023.
“The bombings last night were very strange, in their density, the colours and the smoke they gave off,” recalls Zeina Harb, a teacher in Zawatar El Sharqiya. She describes the “panic” that has gripped residents since the beepers exploded, but still hopes “that the war will not spread.”
The first wave of pager blasts came Tuesday shortly after Israel announced it was expanding its war aims to the northern front, the border with Lebanon, to allow tens of thousands of residents displaced by the violence to return home.
The main objectives stated so far have been the destruction of Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, and the return of the hostages held in the Palestinian territory.
“You will not be able to bring the people of the north” back home, Hassan Nasrallah retorted. “Lebanon’s front with Israel will remain open until the end of the aggression in Gaza,” he said.
“Programmed to explode”
According to a Lebanese security official, the transmission devices used by Hezbollah members “were pre-programmed to explode.”
A preliminary investigation by Lebanese authorities shows that the devices were booby-trapped before entering the country, according to a letter from the Lebanese mission to the UN seen by AFP on Thursday.
The head of Lebanese diplomacy, Abdallah Bou Habib, announced the filing of a complaint with the Security Council following “the Israeli cyberterrorist aggression which constitutes a war crime”.
Meanwhile, bombings continue in the besieged Gaza Strip, where two Israeli strikes killed at least 14 people on Friday morning, according to the Civil Defense.
One of them targeted a house in the Nousseirat camp, in the center of the territory, killing eight people, while six people, including children, were killed in the bombing of a building in the city of Gaza (north), according to this source.
The war broke out on October 7, 2023, when Hamas commandos carried out an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil that resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures that include hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
Of the 251 people abducted during the attack, 97 are still being held in Gaza, 33 of whom have been declared dead by the army.
More than 41,272 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli retaliatory offensive on the Gaza Strip, the majority of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s health ministry in Gaza, deemed reliable by the UN.
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