Israel has killed senior Hezbollah commanders in an airstrike on a Hezbollah stronghold south of Beirut, a devastating attack that has raised fears of all-out war.
The Israel Defense Forces said on Friday that Hezbollah special operations commander Ibrahim Akil was killed, along with at least 10 members of the “senior chain of command of the Radwan Unit,” an elite unit within the group.
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 marks 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.
An attack on such a scale against a top Hezbollah commander would also be a blow to Iran, which sees Hezbollah as its main proxy and closest ally in the region.
Iran has refrained from directly intervening in support of Hezbollah, fearing that could spark 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 to attend the UN General Assembly, warned that Israel “will certainly not 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 31 people were killed in the attack, including three children and seven women, and dozens more were wounded. Hezbollah said at least 14 more of its members were killed, but did not say 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, a raid on a residential building in the capital killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fouad Shukr.
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.
Janine Hennis-Plusschaart, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, called the attack “another worrying escalation.” “We are witnessing an extremely dangerous cycle of violence,” she said. “This must stop now.”
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 the most violent attacks Israel has carried out against Lebanon since the start of the war.
Hezbollah fired more than 140 rockets into Israeli-controlled territory on Friday, sparking several fires, the Israeli military said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Hezbollah said after the Beirut attack that it had fired further rocket volleys at defensive targets, including the military intelligence headquarters, including one it said was “responsible for the assassination.”
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.
Mikati said he planned to hold talks in the United States on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly “to make the case that there is still room for a diplomatic solution.”
Additional reporting by Malaika Kananeh Tapper in Beirut, Felicia Schwartz in Washington and Najmeh Bozorghmeir in Tehran
