The Israeli military on Friday said its air strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut killed top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil and other senior commanders of the movement's Radwan special forces. Hezbollah has not confirmed the killing. The massive strike in the Hezbollah stronghold in the Lebanese capital killed 14 people and wounded 66, including nine in critical condition, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Read FRANCE 24's liveblog to see how all the day's events unfolded.
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Summary:
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The Israeli military said an air strike in Beirut's southern suburbs killed top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil and other senior commanders of the movement's Radwan special forces. Hezbollah has not confirmed the killing.
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The Israeli air strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, killed 14 people and wounded 66, according to Lebanon's health ministry.
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Hezbollah launched around 140 rockets into northern Israel. The Israeli military said the attack came in three waves. Hezbollah said it targeted several sites across Lebanon's southern border.
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UN human rights chief Volker Turk denounced the detonation of Hezbollah's hand-held devices, which killed 37 people and wounded thousands in Lebanon. At an emergency UN Security Council meeting in New York, Turk called for an "independent, thorough, and transparent investigation" into the explosions.
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The Israeli military opened an investigation after videos showed its soldiers pushing what appear to be bodies off a rooftop in the occupied West Bank during a raid on Thursday in Qabatiya.
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Israeli warplanes carried out late on Thursday their heaviest aerial strikes on southern Lebanon, striking hundreds of multiple rocket launcher barrels.
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At least 41,252 Palestinians have been killed and 95,497 wounded in Israel's war in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. The Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,190 people, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli figures. Some 250 people were taken hostage, with about 120 remaining in Gaza. Many have been declared dead by Israeli authorities.
Yesterday's key developments:
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Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged that his group suffered an "unprecedented blow" with the attacks targeting his group's electronic devices. But he vowed to keep up daily strikes on Israel in his first speech since this weeks attacks in Lebanon.
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Two Israeli soldiers were killed in combat near Israel's northern border with Lebanon, the Israeli military said.
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It is widely believed that Israel orchestrated explosive attacks targeting hand-held electronic devices used by Hezbollah but the blasts have also killed civilians, including two children. Explosions on Tuesday targeting pagers killed 12 people and exploding walkie-talkies and other electronics on Wednesday killed 25 people, taking the total death toll to 37, according to Lebanese health ministry figures. Roughly 3,000 people were wounded over two days of attacks.
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Japanese firm Icom said that it stopped producing the model of two-way radios reportedly used in Wednesday's blasts in Lebanon around 10 years ago. The company said it last exported the devices overseas, including to the Middle East, in 2014.
Gaza’s health ministry collects data from the enclave’s hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent. For more on the health ministry’s casualty figures, click here.
(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP, Reuters)
