An Israeli strike hit Lebanese terror group Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs, days after Israel said it would retaliate over a deadly attack on the annexed Golan Heights blamed on the group.
The Israeli military said it targeted the Hezbollah commander who was responsible for a strike in the Golan Heights that killed 12 children and teenagers at the weekend.
“The IDF carried out a targeted strike in Beirut, on the commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians,” the Israeli Defence Forces said in a statement.
Shortly after the strike, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah “crossed the red line” in a social media post and claimed responsibility for the strike.
Hezbollah sources told news agency AFP that “a leading commander” was the target of the strike, which targeted the group’s maindecision making body, the Shura Council.
They added that two people were killed in the strike, but was unable to confirm if the commander was among them. The agency cited witnesses who said they heard a loud bang and saw plumes of smoke rising.
Photos released by Reuters showed people gathered near a site hit by what security officials said was a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said “an enemy raid targeted near Hezbollah’s Shura Council,” the powerful Lebanese group’s decision-making body in Beirut’s Haret Hreik suburb.
The last floor of an eight-storey building was hit and that ambulances had converged at the site of the strike.
On Saturday, a strike on the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights killed 12 children. It was blamed by Israel and the United States on Lebanon’s Hezbollah, although the Iran-backed group has denied any connection to the attack.
During a visit on Monday to Majdal Shams, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed a “severe response”, raising fears yet again that the Gaza war could spill over into a wider regional conflagration.
At least 531 people have been killed on the Lebanese side of the near daily cross-border exchanges, according to an AFP tally. Most have been fighters, but the toll includes at least 105 civilians.
The violence has so far killed 22 soldiers and 25 civilians on the Israeli side, including in the Golan Heights, according to army figures.
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