After deadly Beirut airstrike, Netanyahu says Israel's goals are ‘clear’

JERUSALEM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that his country's goals are “clear” and that its actions “speak for themselves,” marking his first comment following the airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut that killed 14 people.

“Our goals are clear, and our actions speak for themselves,” his office said in a statement on X.

Netanyahu provided no detail about the attack on Beirut’s southern suburb, also known as "Dahieh," a Hezbollah stronghold.

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 14 people and injured 66 others, with nine in critical condition, in Beirut's southern suburb, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.

The official Lebanese National News Agency said the strike hit an apartment in one of the residential buildings of the Jamous area in Beirut’s southern suburb.

Following the airstrike, a senior Israeli official told Israeli Army Radio that the target was Ibrahim Aqil, a top military commander of the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Later, the Israeli army claimed that it had assassinated Aqil along with senior commanders from the group's elite Radwan Force.

According to an Anadolu correspondent on the ground, the Israeli strike severely damaged buildings in southern Beirut.

The Beirut strike marks the third such attack by Israel on the southern suburbs of Beirut since the ongoing wave of hostilities began nearly a year ago.

Previous notable attacks include the assassination of Hamas political bureau deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri on Jan. 2 and the killing of prominent Hezbollah leader Fouad Shukr on July 30.

The recent airstrike occurs amid a new wave of Israeli escalation in Lebanon, with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announcing on Thursday that the conflict with Hezbollah has entered “a new phase.”

On Tuesday and Wednesday, 37 people were killed and more than 3,250 others, including children and women, were injured in a series of explosions that struck “pager” and “ICOM” wireless devices in Lebanon. There has been no Israeli comment on the blasts.

Hezbollah is yet to comment on Friday’s airstrike, which came amid an escalation in cross-border warfare with Israel since the start of Tel Aviv's deadly war on the Gaza Strip, where nearly 41,300 people, mostly women and children, were killed following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio