Top Hezbollah commander killed in Beirut airstrike, Israeli army says – fuelling worry of all-out warfare | EUROtoday

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Israel says it has killed a prime Hezbollah commander in a strike on Beirut, fuelling fears of an all-out warfare on the Israeli-Lebanon border.

Israeli army stated that Ibrahim Aqi Aqil, who served on Hezbollah’s prime army physique, was the appearing commander of the group’s elite Radwan pressure and that he was killed together with round 10 different senior commanders of the unit.

The strike killed 9 folks and wounded 59 others, Lebanon’s well being ministry stated, in a preliminary toll – with the blast destroying a number of residential flats.

The strike inflicted one other blow on Hezbollah after the group suffered an unprecedented assault earlier this week by which pagers and walkie-talkies utilized by its members exploded, killing a minimum of 37 folks and wounding extra then 3,000. That assault was extensively believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed or denied its involvement.

A earlier Israeli strike on Beirut in July killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr. Another strike in January additionally focused senior Hezbollah personnel.

Aqil is believed to have been concerned in two Hezbollah bombings on the US embassy and marine corps barracks in Beirut within the Eighties, which killed tons of of US personnel. In 2013, Washington then put a $7million (£5.2 million) bounty on his head for any data resulting in his location, arrest or conviction.

A thick cloud of smoke might be seen rising over the southern a part of town late on Friday as footage confirmed dozens of automobiles destroyed and particles carpeting the road exterior a number of broken high-rise buildings.

White House nationwide safety spokesman John Kirby stated he was not conscious of any Israeli notification to the United States earlier than the Beirut strike, including that Americans had been strongly urged to not journey to Lebanon, or to depart if they’re already there. The UK has made the identical plea. The overseas secretary, David Lammy, chaired a gathering on Friday to debate preparations to evacuate remaining Britons from Lebanon if required.

“War is not inevitable up there… and we’re going to continue to do everything we can to try to prevent it,” Mr Kirby stated, referring to the frontier between Lebanon and Israel.

It got here simply hours after Hezbollah fired round 140 rockets into northern Israel. The group’s chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Thursday to retaliate in opposition to Israel for the mass bombing assault.

Israel’s army stated the rockets got here in three waves on Friday afternoon native time, concentrating on websites alongside the ravaged border with Lebanon.

Around 120 missiles had been launched at areas of the occupied Golan Heights, in addition to the close by Safed and the Upper Galilee, a few of which had been intercepted, they stated.

Fire crews had been working to extinguish blazes attributable to items of particles that fell to the bottom in a number of areas, they stated, with out confirming if any missiles had hit their targets or prompted casualties. Another 20 missiles had been shot on the areas of Meron and Netua, roughly 25 miles west of the Golan Heights. Most of these fell in open areas, the army stated, including that no accidents had been reported.

Hezbollah claimed its newest assaults had focused a number of websites alongside the border with Katyusha rockets, together with a number of air protection bases in addition to the headquarters of an Israeli armored brigade they stated they’d struck for the primary time.

The present Israeli battle with Hezbollah, which was ignited a day after Hamas launched a bloody act of terror into Israel on 7 October, killing round 1,200 folks and resulting in 251 extra being taken hostage, and began a near-daily alternate of fireside throughout the border. But tensions have spiked in latest weeks.

The southern Lebanese-based group says it won’t stop firing over the border till Israel stops its aerial and floor offensive in Gaza, meant to root out Hamas operatives allied with Hezbollah however which has additionally killed greater than 41,000 Palestinians, in line with the native well being ministry, and displaced greater than 90 per cent of the inhabitants.

US, Egyptian and Qatari efforts to dealer a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have stalled after latest negotiations.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Lebanon hospitals had been flooded with the lifeless and injured after digital pagers after which walkie-talkies utilized by Hezbollah concurrently exploded.

Hezbollah and the native authorities – the 2 are separate authorities in Lebanon – blamed these assaults on Israel. Senior sources have pointed the determine at Mossad, the Israeli spy company, for an operation that probably took months of planning.

A Lebanese supply conversant in the walkie-talkies that blew up on Wednesday advised that they had been laced with a extremely explosive compound referred to as PETN which had been tightly fitted into the battery pack, making it extraordinarily troublesome to detect.

A second safety supply additionally instructed Reuters that the pagers that exploded a day earlier had additionally been laced with explosives.

A US intelligence supply later instructed ABC News that Israel had managed to “interdict” Hezbollah’s tools provide chains and tamper with the pagers.

But Hezbollah stated that the newest volley of rockets on Friday was in retaliation for Israeli strikes on villages and houses in southern Lebanon, not the 2 days of assaults.

On Thursday, Israel stated its army 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 military additionally ordered residents in elements of the Golan Heights and northern Israel to keep away from public gatherings, reduce actions and keep near shelters in anticipation of the rocket hearth that finally got here Friday.