Israel carried out an airstrike in a densely packed neighborhood on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital Tuesday, in an attack that it said killed a senior Hezbollah commander responsible for the deaths of 12 children over the weekend in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights,
The Washington Post reports.
The strike, which threatened to escalate hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah at a combustible moment, occurred around 7:45 p.m. local time in the suburb of Haret Hreik. Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said the strike killed a woman and two children. Televised footage showed several ambulances leaving the scene of the strike, residential streets choked with smoke and debris, and a multistory building partially destroyed with several floors collapsed.
In a statement, the Israeli military said the strike had killed Fuad Shukr, whom it called Hezbollah’s most “senior military commander.” Shukr, the statement said, was Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah’s “adviser for planning and directing wartime operation,” directing the group’s attacks against Israel during the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah on Wednesday confirmed that Shukr was in the building but said it was still working to remove rubble so it could determine his fate. The United States previously offered a reward for information on Shukr, who it accused of playing “a central role” in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 U.S. military personnel.
Lebanon has been bracing for war since Saturday, when a projectile hit a soccer field full of children in Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights. Israel immediately blamed Hezbollah and vowed that it would pay a “heavy price.” The United States also said Hezbollah was responsible: “It was their rocket, and launched from an area they control,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement Sunday. Hezbollah denied it was behind the strike.
On Tuesday, as the two traded fire across the border, Israel said a civilian was killed after suffering shrapnel wounds in one of Hezbollah’s rocket attacks. Hezbollah said its rocket salvos were also fired in retaliation, for civilian casualties in an Israeli raid. The Lebanese group, an ally of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has long said it would end its attacks on Israel in the event of a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
