BEIRUT (AP) — Israel launched a rare airstrike that killed a senior Hezbollah military official in a densely populated southern Beirut neighborhood on Friday, the Israeli army said. It was the deadliest such attack on Lebanon’s capital in years, with Lebanese health authorities reporting at least 12 people killed and dozens more wounded 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.
Hezbollah did not immediately confirm the claim of Akil's killing, which came as a flurry of tit-for-tat bombardments between the enemies raised fears of a full-out war erupting in the Middle East.
The Israeli military did not elaborate on the identities of the other commanders allegedly killed in the strike on the crowded urban neighborhood. Lebanon's Health Ministry said at least 12 people were killed and 66 others were wounded.
It was not immediately clear if the ministry's death toll included Akil. Nine of the wounded were in serious condition, it said.
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.
Lebanese networks broadcast footage showing first responders combing through the rubble of two flattened apartment buildings in the Jamous area, where Hezbollah conducts many of its political and security operations.
Friday's airstrike — apparently the deadliest such attack on a neighborhood of Beirut since Israel and Hezbollah fought a bloody, monthlong war in 2006 — hit during rush hour, as people were leaving work and children heading home from school.
“The attack in Lebanon is to protect Israel," Hagari said at a news conference following the strike, describing Akil as one of Hezbollah militants responsible for the group's regular rocket fire into Israel.
Hours earlier on Friday, Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets as the region awaited the revenge promised by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah over this week’s mass bombing attack on pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members.
Hezbollah portrayed the heavier-than-normal bombardment as a response to past Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, not as revenge for the explosions of Hezbollah pagers on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed at least 20 people and wounded thousands in sophisticated attacks widely attributed to Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in those attacks, which signaled a major escalation in the past 11 months of simmering conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire regularly since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel ignited the Israeli military’s devastating offensive in Gaza. But previous cross-border attacks have largely struck areas in northern Israel that had been evacuated and less-populated parts of southern Lebanon.
The last time Israel hit Beirut was in a July airstrike that killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.
Speaking to journalists, Hagari described both Shukr and Akil as two military officials closest to Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.
He accused Akil of plotting a series of attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians that stretched over decades, as well as master-minding a never-realized plan to invade northern Israel in a similar way to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks.
Last year, the State Department posted a $7 million reward for information leading to Akil's identification, location, arrest or conviction and said he also directed the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s.
Following the Israeli airstrike on Beirut, Hezbollah announced two more attacks on northern Israel, one of which it said targeted an intelligence base from where it claimed Israel directed assassinations.
It was the latest in a string of rocket barrages claimed by Hezbollah this week targeting Israeli military sites. Israel has reported limited damage — including fires sparked by fallen shards of shrapnel — and no casualties.
Israel remains on edge, with Nasrallah vowing Thursday to keep up strikes on Israel despite this week’s deadly sabotage of Hezbollah communication devices — what he called a “severe blow” to the group.
The Israeli army has ordered residents in parts of the Golan Heights and northern Israel to avoid public gatherings, minimize movements and stay close to shelters. In recent days, Israel has also moved a powerful fighting force up to the northern border, officials have escalated their rhetoric, and the country’s security Cabinet has designated the return of tens of thousands of displaced residents to their homes in northern Israel an official war goal.
Meanwhile, fighting in Gaza has slowed, but casualties continue to rise.
Overnight, Palestinian authorities said that 15 people were killed in multiple Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip.
Th ose included six people, including an unknown number of children, in an airstrike early Friday morning in Gaza City that hit a family home, Gaza’s Civil Defense said. Another person was killed in Gaza City when a strike hit a group of people on a street.
Israel maintains that it only targets militants, and accuses Hamas and other armed groups of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas. The military, which rarely comments on individual strikes, had no immediate comment.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says that more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count, but says a little over half of those killed were women and children.
The war has caused vast destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.
___ Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Abby Sewell in Beirut, Fatma Khaled in Cairo and David Rising in Bangkok contributed to this report.
Bassem Mroue And Julia Frankel, The Associated Press