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Israel has conducted an airstrike on Beirut targeting a senior Hezbollah commander “responsible for the murder of children” in Saturday’s rocket attack on the occupied Golan Heights.
The target of the strike was Fuad Shukr, also known as al-Hajj Mohsin, a senior advisor on military affairs to the Lebanese militant group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The Israeli military said Shukr was “eliminated” and described him as “the most senior military commander in Hezbollah” and the militia leader’s “right-hand man”. Hezbollah sources initially claimed Shukr survived the attack, before issuing a statement saying he was in the house that was hit. It did not confirm whether or not he was killed.
Lebanon’s public health ministry said Tuesday’s strike killed one woman and two children. More than 70 people sustained injuries in the blast and were rushed to the private Bahman Hospital and Hezbollah’s Rasoul Aazam hospital.
Footage from the Lebanese capital showed the shells of several destroyed cars, as well as high-rise buildings gutted by the blast in the crowded southern suburb of Haret Hreik.
The Israeli military said the strike was part of a widely-anticipated reaction to the rocket attack on the occupied Golan Heights last Saturday that killed a dozen children and young people. Israel had blamed the attack on the Iran-backed armed group, though Hezbollah strongly denied involvement.
Later on Tuesday night, Hamas said its political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an attack on his home in Tehran, alongside one bodyguard. Hamas blamed Israel for the killing, while Israel has yet to comment.
Hezbollah militants and Israel have routinely exchanged fire since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing around 1,130 people and taking 251 hostages.
Israel’s air and ground assault on Gaza in response to that attack has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run local health ministry. More than 80 per cent of the Strip’s population have been displaced by the war, while large swathes of northern Gaza in particular have been reduced to rubble.
The strike in Beirut was carried out with a drone that launched three rockets, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency.
A resident of the suburb, who lived about 200m away, said that dust from the explosion “covered everything” and that the glass in his son’s apartment was broken. “Then people went down on the streets,” the resident told the Associated Press. “Everyone has family. They went to check on them. It was a lot of destruction.”
Hezbollah official Ali Ammar told Al-Manar TV that the “Israeli enemy has committed a great stupid act in size, timing and circumstances by targeting an entirely civilian area”.
“The Israeli enemy will pay a price for this sooner or later.”
Lebanon’s prime minister Najib Mikati called the strike an act of "blatant Israeli aggression", which he said took place a short distance from one of the largest hospitals in the capital.
He described the strike as “a criminal act that is part of a series of aggressive operations targeting civilians, in clear and blatant violation of international law".
“We fully reserve our right to take all measures that contribute to deterring Israeli aggression.”
Hezbollah claimed they were not responsible for Saturday’s Golan Heights attack on the Druze community. But Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they were under no illusion about Hezbollah’s role in the strike.
During a visit to the site of the attack in the remote town of Majdal Shams, a majority Druze village in a region annexed by Israel from Syria in 1981, he vowed to issue a “harsh” response.
US officials also said they believed Hezbollah was responsible, though the Joe Biden administration urged Israel not to escalate tensions too drastically in their response to the strike.
Diplomats had called on Israel to avoid targeting the Lebanese capital Beirut, its southern suburbs that form Hezbollah's heartland, or key infrastructure. They hoped that by keeping Israel's response limited, forceful retaliation by Hezbollah could be avoided.
But a statement from the Israeli military confirmed they had defied that advice and targeted southern Beirut.
A statement posted to X read: “The [Israeli military] carried out a targeted strike in Beirut, on the commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians.”
A minute after the statement was published, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, a close aide of Mr Netanyahu, wrote on X: “Hezbollah crossed the red line.”
The military added that there were “no changes” to their “defensive guidelines”, a reference to their recent deployments on Israel’s northern border – readying to go on the offensive if needed.
In April, the military said that it had completed another step in preparing for a possible war along its northern front. In a statement titled “readiness for the transition from defence to offence”, they said the phase completed centred on logistics “for a broad mobilisation of [Israeli] troops”.
Mr Netanyahu held a security assessment later on Tuesday evening with Mr Gallant and Israel’s intelligence chiefs.
Hezbollah rejected calls from international envoys to avoid responding to the anticipated Israeli attack.
Hezbollah informed mediators it would still respond to any Israeli attack, an official said in written comments sent to reporters. The official did not say which countries the mediators represented.
"International envoys are indirectly raising with us the idea that we should not respond to the expected aggression under the pretext of the need to avoid escalation and sliding towards a comprehensive war," the Hezbollah official said.
Hezbollah had “informed them of our explicit rejection of this request” and would respond, the official said.
The group took Israel’s threats seriously and was prepared, but did not expect a ground invasion, the official said.
Hezbollah also said mediators had informed them of diplomatic efforts to urge Israel to spare civilians and civilian facilities in any operation. “This is a good thing, but we do not trust our enemy,” the official added.
In January Israel assassinated Saleh al-Arouri, a top Hamas official, with an airstrike on Beirut. That strike was the first time Israel had hit Beirut since the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.
