The attack came days after Israel vowed to retaliate for the deadly assault on the annexed Golan Heights
Beirut, Lebanon:
Israel attacked Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut on Tuesday in retaliation for rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 children this weekend. Israel said it attacked the commander responsible for the attack.
“The IDF (army) carried out a targeted attack in Beirut against the commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the murder of numerous additional Israeli civilians,” the army said in a statement, referring to the Druze Arab town in the annexed Golan Heights where the children were killed on Saturday.
A source close to the Iran-backed rebel group confirmed that “a leading commander” was targeted in the attack, which took place near the group’s decision-making body, the Shura Council.
The source added that two people were killed in the attack, but could not confirm whether the commander was among them.
Minutes after the explosions rocked Beirut, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant posted on social media site X that “Hezbollah has crossed the red line.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday threatened a “severe response” to the attack that Israel and the United States blamed on Hezbollah, although the group denies responsibility.
After Saturday’s strike, the international community had mobilized to prevent any escalation that could plunge the two into their first major conflict since 2006.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said on Monday that he had received assurances from international diplomats that there would be only a limited response.
“Israel will escalate in a limited way and Hezbollah will respond in a limited way… These are the guarantees we have received,” Bou Habib said in an interview with local broadcaster Al-Jadeed.
Analysts told AFP they also expected Israel to moderate its actions, with its leaders wary of a second war while its forces are still engaged in the Gaza Strip.
‘Constant fear’
At least 531 people have been killed on the Lebanese side in the almost daily cross-border exchanges, according to an AFP count. Most were combatants, but the toll includes at least 105 civilians.
According to army figures, 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have been killed on the Israeli side so far, including on the Golan Heights.
There was more deadly violence earlier on Tuesday, with Israeli medics saying a 30-year-old civilian had been killed in the northern kibbutz of HaGoshrim. The army said it had killed a Hezbollah fighter in overnight attacks.
Druze residents of the Majdal Shams – the vast majority of whom have rejected Israeli citizenship and identify as Syrians – had pushed back against threats of retaliation for the deadly attack.
Dozens of residents had come out to protest Netanyahu’s visit after the funeral of the latest victims of the rocket attack.
A paramedic from Majdal Shams, Nabih Abu Saleh, told AFP that his community was “against any Israeli response,” asking: “Who will we attack? Our people in Syria and Lebanon?”
A French diplomat previously told AFP that Paris “together with other partners, especially the United States, is doing everything it can to call on the parties to exercise restraint and not be drawn into a spiral of violence.”
Multiple international airlines have suspended flights to Beirut in anticipation of Israel’s retaliation, although the chairman of Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines, Mohammed al-Hout, said Beirut airport, the only international facility, “is not exposed to any threat, but is supposed to be a neutral airport”. place,” state media report.
The Lebanese public, meanwhile, has been gripped by worry, with mother-of-two Cosette Beshara describing herself as living “in a state of constant fear”.
“I always think about how I will escape with my children if war breaks out,” the 40-year-old said, adding that “life goes on in Lebanon… but always with a looming state of fear.”
Khan Yunis operation
Hezbollah has said its attacks on northern Israel are in solidarity with Hamas and the people of Gaza, which has been under siege by Israel since October 7.
The Hamas attack on southern Israel that started the war resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Hamas also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 who the army says are dead.
Israel’s military retaliation campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-held territory, which did not provide details of civilian and surgical fatalities.
Fighting in the Gaza Strip has continued unabated, with the territory’s civil protection agency saying on Tuesday that around 300 people had been killed in the southern town of Khan Yunis during an Israeli operation there that began on July 22.
“Since the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion in the eastern part of Khan Yunis province, civil defense and medical teams have recovered around 300 bodies of martyrs, many of which are decomposing,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
The army, meanwhile, said it had completed its operation in the Khan Yunis area, where heavy fighting took place earlier this year, and had killed “more than 150 terrorists”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
