Israel Says Its Strike On Beirut Killed Top Hezbollah Military Official
HuffPost
Lebanese health officials said at least 12 people were killed and 66 others were wounded in the strike on the crowded urban neighborhood.
BEIRUT (AP) — Israel launched a rare airstrike that killed a senior Hezbollah military official in a densely populated neighborhood of southern Beirut on Friday, the Israeli army said. It was the deadliest such attack on Lebanon’s capital in years. At least 12 others were reported killed in the attack.
The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the strike on Beirut’s southern Dahiya district targeted and killed Ibrahim Akil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, as well as 10 other Hezbollah operatives.
There was no immediate confirmation of Akil’s death from Hezbollah.
The Israeli military did not elaborate on the identities of the other commanders allegedly killed in the strike on the crowded urban neighborhood. Lebanese health officials said at least 12 people were killed and 66 others were wounded there. Nine of the wounded, they said, were in serious condition.
A Hezbollah official confirmed that Akil was supposed to be in the building that was hit but gave no further information. Akil has served on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council, and has been sanctioned by the United States for being involved in two terrorist attacks in 1983 that killed more than 300 people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the U.S. Marine Corps barracks.
