Israeli army claims assassinating Hezbollah senior leader in airstrike on Beirut

JERUSALEM

The Israeli army claimed on Friday that it has assassinated Ibrahim Aqil, whom it described as the head of Hezbollah's operations and the de facto commander of the Radwan Force, in a drone strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

In a statement, the Israeli army said that “aircraft conducted a targeted, intelligence-based strike in the area of Beirut, and eliminated Ibrahim Aqil, the head of Hezbollah's Operations Unit and the commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force.”

“During the strike, senior operatives in Hezbollah's operations staff and commanders from the Radwan Unit were eliminated alongside Aqil,” the statement added.

The statement claimed that “Ibrahim Aqil and the Radwan commanders who were eliminated today were planning Hezbollah’s ‘Conquer the Galilee’ attack, in which Hezbollah intended to infiltrate Israeli communities and murder innocent civilians.”

Earlier in the day, the Lebanese Ministry of Health reported in a statement that 12 people were killed and 66 others injured, including nine in critical condition, in the Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut.

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

Ambulances and civil defense teams rushed to the area and transferred several of the injured to the hospital.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, 37 people were killed and more than 3,250 others, including women and children, injured in a series of explosions involving wireless communication devices, including pagers and two-way radios.

The Lebanese government and Hezbollah held Israel responsible for the device explosions and threatened it with “severe consequences.”

There has been no Israeli comment on the blasts, which came amid an escalation in cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of Israel’s deadly war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed nearly 41,300 people, mostly women and children, following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year.

* Writing by Mohammad Sio