Israel kills top Hezbollah commander and at least 12 others in Beirut

Israel launched a rare airstrike that killed a top Hezbollah commander in a densely populated neighbourhood of southern Beirut on Friday, the Israeli army said. It was the deadliest such attack on Lebanon’s capital in years. At least 12 others were reported killed in the attack.

The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the strike on Beirut's southern Dahiya district targeted and killed Ibrahim Akil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, as well as 10 other Hezbollah operatives.

There was no immediate confirmation of Akil's death from Hezbollah.

The Israeli military did not elaborate on the identities of the other commanders allegedly killed in the strike on the crowded urban neighbourhood. Lebanese health officials said at least 12 people were killed and 66 others were wounded there. Nine of the wounded, they said, were in serious condition.

A Hezbollah official confirmed that Akil was supposed to be in the building that was hit but gave no further information. Akil has served on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council, and has been sanctioned by the United States for being involved in two terrorist attacks in 1983 that killed more than 300 people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the U.S. Marine Corps barracks.

Lebanon's local networks aired footage showing first responders combing through the rubble of two flattened apartment buildings in the Jamous area, just kilometres from downtown Beirut where Hezbollah conducts many of its political and security operations.

The strike hit during rush hour as people were leaving work and children heading home from school.

“The attack in Lebanon is to protect Israel," Hagari said at a news conference following the strike, describing Akil as one of Hezbollah militants responsible for the group's regular rocket fire into Israel.

Earlier on Friday, Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets as the the region awaited the retaliation promised by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah over this week’s mass bombing attack on pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members.

The strike — apparently the deadliest such Israeli attack on a neighbourhood of Beirut since Israel and Hezbollah fought a bloody, monthlong war in 2006 — signalled a major escalation in the past 11 months of cross-border attacks.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire regularly since since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel triggered the Israeli military’s devastating offensive in Gaza. But the cross-border attacks, while raising fears of an all-out regional war, have largely struck evacuated communities in northern Israel and less-populated parts of southern Lebanon.

The last time Israel hit Beirut was in a July airstrike that killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.

Speaking to journalists, Hagari described Shukr and Akil as two military officials closest to Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.

He accused Akil of plotting a series of attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians that stretched over the decades, as well as master-minding an unfulfilled plan to invade northern Israel in a similar way to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks.

Last year, the State Department posted a 6.3 million euro reward for information leading to Akil's identification, location, arrest or conviction and said he also directed the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s.

Following the Israeli airstrike on Beirut, Hezbollah announced two more attacks on northern Israel, one of which it said targeted an intelligence base from which it claimed Israel directed assassinations, the latest in a string of rocket barrages this week targeting Israeli military sites that Israel said caused limited damage and no casualties. Fire crews were working to extinguish blazes caused by pieces of debris that fell to the ground in several areas.

The Israeli army ordered residents in parts of the Golan Heights and northern Israel to avoid public gatherings, minimise movements and stay close to shelters in anticipation of further rocket fire.

The region has been even more on edge since Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded en masse this week, killing at least 20 people and wounding thousands in Lebanon in attacks widely attributed to Israel. The sophisticated attacks have heightened fears that the cross-border exchanges of fire will escalate into all-out war. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the attacks.

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, it stated. It didn’t say whether any missiles had hit targets or caused any casualties.

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.

Nasrallah on Thursday vowed to keep up daily strikes on Israel despite this week’s deadly sabotage of its members’ communication devices, which he described as a “severe blow.”

In recent days, Israel has moved a powerful fighting force up to the northern border, officials have escalated their rhetoric, and the country’s security Cabinet has designated the return of tens of thousands of displaced residents to their homes in northern Israel an official war goal.

Fighting in Gaza has slowed, but casualties continue to rise.