Israel strike targets Hezbollah commander in southern Beirut suburb
Group says assassination attempt of Fuad Shukr has failed; 3 killed in the attack
Beirut: An Israeli strike hit 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.
Lebanon's health ministry said three people were killed and 74 injured in the strike. The "non-final toll of the Israeli aggression on the southern suburbs of Beirut... is three martyrs, including a woman, a girl and a boy," the ministry said, adding that 74 people had been wounded, "while the search for missing persons under the rubble continues".
"Israel has struck the Beirut southern suburb," the source said, requesting anonymity, with witnesses telling AFP they heard a loud bang and saw plumes of smoke rising.
The Hezbollah commander targeted in the airstrike is reported by multiple media outlets to be Fuad Shukr, also known as Hajj Mohsin, a senior adviser to the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Attempt failed
Hezbollah said Israel’s assassination attempt of Fuad Shukr has failed and that the leader is alive. Shukr was named by the IDF several years ago as a commander of Hezbollah’s precision missile project.
He is also wanted by the United States for his role in the 1983 bombing of a US Marines barracks in Beirut.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed it carried out the airstrike in Lebanon’s capital Beirut.
"The IDF (army) 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 military said in a statement, referring to the Druze Arab town where Saturday's rocket attack killed 12 children.
Israel blamed the Lebanon-based militant group for the weekend attack.
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"At the moment, there are no changes in the Home Front Command defensive guidelines," the IDF said.
"If any changes will be made, an update will be released." After the military carried out a targeted strike, Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hezbollah had "crossed the red line" .
"Hezbollah crossed the red line," Gallant wrote on X.