Israel attacked a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut on Tuesday in retaliation for a rocket attack from Lebanon that killed 12 children over the weekend. Israel said it had targeted the commander responsible for the attack.
“The IDF (army) carried out a targeted attack in Beirut on the commander responsible for the killing of children in Majdal Shams and the killing of several other Israeli civilians,” the army said in a statement, referring to the Druze Arab town in the Golan Heights where children were killed on Saturday.
A source close to the Iran-backed insurgent group confirmed that “a key commander” was the target of the attack, which took place near the group’s decision-making body, the Shura Council.
The source said two people were killed in the attack, but it could not be confirmed whether the commander was among them.
Minutes after the Beirut explosions, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant posted on the social media site X that “Hezbollah has crossed the red line”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday threatened a “strong response” to the attack. Israel and the United States have blamed Hezbollah for the attack, although the group has denied responsibility.
Following Saturday’s attack, the international community was keen to prevent any situation that could lead to a full-blown conflict between the two countries for the first time since 2006.
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said on Monday he had received assurances from international diplomats that there would be a limited response.
“Israel will move in a limited way and Hezbollah will respond in a limited way … these are the assurances 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 because its leaders worry they could have to fight another war as long as its troops remain deployed in the Gaza Strip.
‘Constant worry’
At least 531 people have been killed in the almost daily cross-border clashes on the Lebanese side, according to an AFP report. Most are fighters, but at least 105 civilians are among the dead.
The violence has so far killed 22 soldiers and 25 civilians on the Israeli side, including the Golan Heights, according to army figures.
There was also deadly violence earlier on Tuesday, with Israeli medics saying a 30-year-old civilian was killed in the northern kibbutz of HaGoshrim. The army said it had killed a Hezbollah fighter during overnight strikes.
The Druze residents of Majdal Shams – most of whom have rejected Israeli citizenship and identify themselves as Syrian – had protested threats of retaliation for the deadly attack.
After the funeral of the last victims of the rocket attack, a large number of residents came out to protest Netanyahu’s visit.
Nabih Abu Saleh, a paramedic from Majdal Shams, told AFP his community was “against any Israeli response”, and asked: “Who will we attack? Our people in Syria and Lebanon?”
A French diplomat earlier told AFP that Paris was “doing everything possible, together with other partners, especially the United States, to call on all parties to exercise restraint and not resort to violence.”
Several international airlines have suspended flights to Beirut ahead of Israel’s retaliation, although Mohammed al-Hout, president of Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines, said Beirut airport, its only international hub, “is not exposed to any threat, it is considered a neutral place”, state media reported.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese public is gripped by anxiety, with mother of two Cosette Beshara saying she is living in a “constant state of anxiety”.
“I’m always thinking about how I will survive with my children if war breaks out,” the 40-year-old said, adding that “life goes on in Lebanon … but there is always a state of anxiety.”
Khan Yunis Operation
Hezbollah has said its attacks on northern Israel are a show of solidarity with Hamas and the people of Gaza, who have been under Israeli siege since October 7.
The war, triggered by a Hamas attack on southern Israel, resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Hamas has also taken 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still being held in Gaza, 39 of whom the military says are dead.
At least 39,400 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, although the ministry did not give a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.
Fighting continues in the Gaza Strip and the territory’s civil protection agency said on Tuesday that nearly 300 people had been killed in the southern town of Khan Younis during the Israeli offensive that began on July 22.
“Since the start of the Israeli ground offensive on the eastern part of Khan Yunis province, civil defence and medical teams have recovered nearly 300 bodies of martyrs, many of them in a decomposed state,” agency spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.
Meanwhile the army said it had completed its operation in the Khan Younis region, 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.)
