Israel attacks Beirut neighborhood | News, Sports, Jobs

People gather near a damaged building at the site of an Israeli rocket attack in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, on Friday. The Associated Press

BEIRUT — Israel carried out a rare airstrike that killed a senior Hezbollah military official in a densely populated southern Beirut neighborhood on Friday, the deadliest such attack on the Lebanese capital in decades, and Lebanese authorities said at least 14 people were killed and dozens more wounded in the attack.

The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the attack on Beirut’s southern Dahiya district killed Ibrahim Akil, commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, as well as 10 other Hezbollah fighters.

“We will continue to pursue our enemies to defend our citizens, even in Dahiya, in Beirut,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, describing the Israeli attack on Akil as part of a “new phase of the war.”

Hours later, Hezbollah confirmed Akil’s death. In a statement, the Lebanese militant group described Akil as a “great jihad leader” and said he “joined the procession of his brothers, great martyr leaders, after a blessed life full of jihad, work, wounds, sacrifices, dangers, challenges, achievements and victories.”

Akil served on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council. He was sanctioned by the United States for his alleged role in the 1983 bombing that killed more than 300 people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and a U.S. Marine Corps barracks.

A man injured in a portable device explosion sits outside the Eye Specialist Hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, on Friday. The Associated Press

Last year, the U.S. State Department offered a $7 million reward for information leading to his identification, location, arrest or conviction, citing his role in the embassy bombing and the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s.

The strike comes as a new cycle of escalating tensions between the foes has sparked fears of a war breaking out in the Middle East.

Hours before the Israeli attack, Hezbollah fired 140 rockets at northern Israel as the region awaited revenge promised by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah for the mass explosions of pagers belonging to members of the Shiite militant group this week.

The Israeli military did not identify the other Hezbollah commanders who were reportedly killed in the attack on a crowded district of the city located just a few kilometers from central Beirut.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least 14 people were killed and 66 wounded in the attack. The attack razed an apartment building where the Israeli army said Akil had been meeting with other fighters in the basement. Nine of the wounded were in serious condition, the ministry added.

Local television stations in Lebanon showed footage of rescuers searching through the rubble of a collapsed tower block in the Jamous district in the heart of Dahiya, where Hezbollah conducts many of its political and security operations.

The rescue operation continued into the night on Friday, hours after the attack, as rescuers struggled to clear debris to reach the building’s basement, where many bodies were believed to be buried.

Friday’s airstrike — the deadliest on a Beirut neighborhood since the bloody, month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 — came at rush hour, when people were leaving work and children were returning from school.

At St. Teresa Hospital in Beirut, near the site of the airstrike, crowds of people gathered to donate blood for those injured in the attack.

“In this situation, we are all together, so it is my duty,” said Hussein Harake, who lined up to donate blood.

Gallant said he had briefed senior military officials from Israel on the attack and promised that Israel would continue to fight Hezbollah “until we achieve our goal of ensuring the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes.”

The attack came after Hezbollah launched one of the most intense bombardments of northern Israel in nearly a year of fighting, mostly on Israeli military positions. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted most of the Katyusha rockets. The few that got through started small fires but caused little damage and no Israeli casualties.

Hezbollah has described the latest wave of rocket fire as a response to earlier Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon, and not as revenge for the indiscriminate explosions of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed at least 37 people, including two children, and wounded 2,900 in attacks widely attributed to Israel.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in this week’s sophisticated attacks, which mark a major escalation in the growing conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border over the past 11 months.

“The attack in Lebanon is aimed at protecting Israel,” Hagari told a news conference after Friday’s attack, describing Shukr and Akil as the two military men who are closest to Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.

Hagari also accused Akil of planning a series of attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians dating back decades, including a never-implemented plan to invade northern Israel in a similar manner to the October 7 Hamas attacks.

Hamas, which continues to fight Israel in the Gaza Strip, condemned the Israeli attack on Akil, calling it a “new crime” and a “violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty.”

Even as the world’s attention is focused on the rising tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, the death toll among Palestinian civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip continues to rise.

Palestinian health authorities said Friday morning that 15 people, including children, were killed in Israeli attacks that targeted a family home and a group of people on a street in Gaza City. Israel’s campaign in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza-based Health Ministry.