BEIRUT — Israel launched a rare airstrike that killed a senior Hezbollah military official in a densely populated southern Beirut neighborhood on Friday, the Israeli army said. It was the deadliest such strike on Lebanon’s capital in years, with Lebanese health authorities reporting at least 14 people killed and dozens more wounded in the attack.
The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the strike on Beirut’s southern Dahiya district killed Ibrahim Akil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, as well as 10 other Hezbollah operatives.
“We will continue pursuing our enemies in order to defend our citizens, even in Dahiya, in Beirut,” said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, describing the Israeli strike that targeted Akil as part of “a new phase of war.”
There was no word from Hezbollah on Akil’s killing, which came as a flurry of tit-for-tat bombardments between the enemies raised fears of a full-out war erupting in the Middle East.
Hours before the Israeli strike, Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets as the region awaited the revenge promised by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah over this week’s mass explosions of pagers belonging to members of the Shiite militant group.
The Israeli military did not provide the identities of the other Hezbollah commanders allegedly killed in its strike on the crowded neighborhood just kilometers from downtown Beirut.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least 14 people were killed and 66 others were wounded in the attack, which leveled the apartment building where the Israeli army claimed Akil had been meeting with other militants in the basement. Nine of the wounded were in serious condition, the ministry added.
It was not immediately clear if the Lebanese Health Ministry’s death toll included Akil, who has served on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council. He was sanctioned by the United States for his alleged involvement in the 1983 bombing that killed more than 300 people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the U.S. Marine Corps barracks.
Local networks in Lebanon broadcast footage showing first responders sifting through the rubble of a collapsed high-rise in the Jamous area in the heart of Dahiya, where Hezbollah conducts many of its political and security operations.
Friday’s airstrike — the deadliest such attack on a neighborhood of Beirut since Israel and Hezbollah fought a bloody, monthlong war in 2006 — hit during rush hour, as people were leaving work and children heading home from school.
At Beirut’s St. Therese Hospital near the scene of the airstrike, crowds flocked to donate blood for those wounded in the attack.
“We are all together in this situation, so it’s my obligation,” said Hussein Harake, who lined up to donate blood.
From Israel, Gallant said he briefed senior military officials on the strike and vowed Israel would press on against Hezbollah “until we achieve our goal, ensuring the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes.”
