Lebanon’s Health Ministry said 37 people were killed in Friday’s airstrike on southern Beirut.
Two Hezbollah commanders were among 37 people killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut, it has been reported, dealing a blow to the Iranian-backed group’s leadership amid fears that hostilities could spiral into an all-out regional war.
Hezbollah said Ibrahim Akil, who headed its elite Radwan Force, and Ahmed Wahbi, another senior commander were killed in Friday’s strikes, The Associated Press reported.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the strike had targeted an underground gathering of the group’s military leaders, killing 16 Hezbollah members, 12 senior commanders. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said that three children and seven women were among the dead.
The rush-hour attack on an apartment block was the deadliest in the Lebanese capital since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Akil was the main target and had been wanted by the U.S. over the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and in taking hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s, according to the AP.
Wahbi had played major roles within Hezbollah for decades and was imprisoned in an Israeli jail in south Lebanon in 1984. Hezbollah said he was one of the “field commanders” of a 1997 ambush in southern Lebanon that left 12 Israeli troops dead, the AP reported
The IDF said that the strike had “almost completely dismantled” Hezbollah’s military chain of command. On Saturday, cross-border strikes continued with Israeli warplanes bombarding Lebanon’s south and Hezbollah saying that its rocket attacks had hit military targets in Israel’s north.
