Israel hits Beirut in a rare strike, killing at least 8 people and injuring dozens

Israeli strike on Beirut kills 3, wounds 17; Hezbollah retaliates with rockets; escalating tensions in the region.

An Israeli airstrike hit a neighborhood in Beirut on Friday (September 20, 2024), killing at least eight people and injuring nearly 60 others, Lebanese health officials said, the first such Israeli attack on Lebanon’s capital in months.

The Israeli strike on Beirut’s crowded southern suburbs hit during rush hour, as people headed home from work and children left school. Local networks broadcast footage that showed at least two buildings completely flattened and the main street ravaged in Dahiyeh, just kilometers from downtown Beirut where Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group holds sway.

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss behind-the-scenes security matters, said the strike targeted Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah military official. It was not immediately clear whether he was killed.

An official close to the Hezbollah militant group, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to brief the media, confirmed that Akil was supposed to be in the building when it was hit.

Akil has served as the head of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force and Jihad Council, the group’s highest military body. The U.S. State Department has sanctioned Akil for his alleged role in carrying out the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and blamed him for directing the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon during the 1980s.

Earlier on Friday, Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets and the region awaited the revenge promised by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, for this week’s mass bombing attack on pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members.

Hezbollah said that its attacks had targeted several Israeli miltiary sites along the border with Katyusha rockets, including multiple air defense bases as well as the headquarters of an Israeli armored brigade they said they’d struck for the first time.