Israel killed a dozen senior Hezbollah commanders in an airstrike on a Hezbollah stronghold south of Beirut, raising fears of an all-out war.
The Israel Defense Forces said on Saturday that Hezbollah special operations commander Ibrahim Akil was killed along with 15 other operatives, including members of the group’s elite Radwan Unit senior chain of command.
Extremist groups Confirmed The news agency announced late on Friday that Akil had been killed in an Israeli strike, describing him as one of the “greatest leaders”. It added on Saturday that another senior commander, Ahmed Wehbi, had also been killed.
Akil’s death represents the most significant blow Israel has dealt to Hezbollah, Lebanon’s dominant political and military force, since its formation in the early 1980s.
The Radwan Forces are a Hezbollah wing tasked with operating across the Israeli border and defending southern Lebanon from a ground invasion. Israel has targeted the Radwan Forces for months with the goal of driving them back from the border.
Attacking a top Hezbollah commander on such a scale teeth It would also be a blow to Iran, which sees the Lebanese group as its main proxy and closest ally in the region.
Iran has refrained from directly intervening in support of Hezbollah for fear of triggering all-out war, and there is speculation in Tehran that Israel is trying to drag Iran into the conflict and provoke a US attack on Iran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, arriving in New York for the UN General Assembly, warned that Israel “will never achieve its objective of escalating and expanding the war” but “will get an answer for its crimes,” state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.
The attack came after Israel announced it had entered a “new phase” in the nearly year-old conflict with Hezbollah, which has been largely contained to the Israeli-Lebanese border area.
The attack will increase pressure on Hezbollah to respond forcefully, as it is reeling from daily attacks on its military and wary of being drawn into a full-scale war with a much more sophisticated army.
Lebanese authorities said Saturday that 37 people were killed in the attack, including three children and seven women, and dozens more were wounded. Israel said it had killed 16 Hezbollah operatives and identified nine of them. Hezbollah also confirmed that all nine were killed, but did not disclose their ranks.
Health Minister Firas Abiad said he expected the death toll to rise as rescuers continued to pull bodies from the rubble.
Lebanon’s state news agency reported that an F-35 fighter jet fired four missiles at Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh, hitting a residential building, and the Israeli military said it killed its commanders as they were holding a meeting below the building.
The attack capped a devastating week of mass explosions at Hezbollah communications equipment, killing 37 people and wounding thousands. Hezbollah blamed Israel for the attack, but Israel has not commented directly.
The Israeli attack was the second to target a senior Hezbollah commander in southern Beirut since the conflict erupted in October last year. In July, an attack on a residential building in the capital left Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fouad Shukr, dead.
Like Shukr, Akil was one of Hezbollah’s founding members and served on Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, its highest military body, according to four people familiar with Hezbollah’s activities. After Shukr’s killing, Akil took over some of the slain commander’s duties, the people said.
The United States suspected Akil of involvement in the attacks on U.S. and French military barracks in Beirut 41 years ago (which killed 307 people), and the attack on the U.S. Embassy (which killed 63 people).
The attack came amid heavy artillery fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, which has been conducting cross-border artillery fire since firing rockets into Israel on October 8, the day after Hamas’ attack on the Jewish state.
The Israeli military said Thursday night that its jets had struck around 100 rocket launchers in Lebanon that were scheduled to be fired at Israel in the “near future,” in one of Israel’s most violent attacks on Lebanon since the start of the war.
Hezbollah said it had launched further attacks following Friday’s attack in Beirut, targeting defense sites including the military intelligence headquarters, including one it said was “responsible for the assassination.”
Israel on Saturday closed its airspace to non-emergency flights north of the town of Hadera, about 80 kilometers south of the Lebanese border, for 24 hours as the two countries exchanged heavy artillery fire. The Israeli military said Hezbollah fired 90 shells at Israel and that its jets struck some 180 targets in Lebanon and disabled thousands of launchers.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Washington still did not consider a larger war “inevitable.”
“We don’t want an escalation. We don’t want a second front in this war,” Kirby said. “Everything we’re doing is aimed at preventing that outcome.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who condemned this week’s “criminal” attacks, said he had requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. “All communications received yesterday from senior officials of the international community confirm that Israel’s enemies have crossed a red line,” he said.
Additional reporting by Malaika Kananeh Tapper in Beirut, Felicia Schwartz in Washington and Najmeh Bozorghmeir in Tehran
