Israeli strike targets senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon’s capital Beirut

An airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday killed a senior commander of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah on Tuesday, Al Arabiya sources and the Israeli army confirmed, but the Iran-backed group said he was still alive.

The sources named the target as Mohsen Shukur but said he was also known as Fuad Shukr. Fuad Shukr was sanctioned by the United States in 2015.

The Israeli military said late on Tuesday that Israeli Air Force fighter jets have killed Hezbollah’s most senior military commander and head of its strategic unit, Fuad Shukr, also known as “Sayyid Muhsan,” in the Beirut area.

Fuad served as the right-hand man to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and was his adviser for wartime operations, the statement said.

“Fuad Shukr has directed Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel since October 8th,” the statement added, saying he was responsible for the death of 12 children in Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Lebanon’s healthy ministry said Wednesday three people, including two children, had been killed and 74 were injured.

The “non-final toll of the Israeli aggression on the southern suburbs of Beirut… is three martyrs, including a woman, a girl and a boy,” the ministry said, adding that 74 people had been wounded, “while the search for missing persons under the rubble continues.”

Sources familiar with the matter said that Israel informed Washington ahead of the strike. Asked about this, a US defense official told Al Arabiya English that “conversations among leadership are confidential and will remain that way as a matter of national security.”

A loud blast was heard and a plume of smoke could be seen rising above the southern suburbs – a stronghold of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah – at around 7:40 p.m. (1640 GMT), a Reuters witness said.

Lebanon’s state-run national news agency earlier said an Israeli strike had targeted the area around Hezbollah’s Shura Council in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of the capital.

An AFP photographer on the ground said the last floor of an eight-story building was hit and that ambulances had converged at the site of the strike.

Beirut has been on edge for days ahead of an anticipated Israeli attack in retaliation for a strike on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed a dozen youngsters.

Israel and the United States have blamed Hezbollah for the attack. Hezbollah has denied responsibility.

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Lebanese armed group Hezbollah had “crossed the red line,” after the military carried out the targeted strike in south Beirut.

“Hezbollah crossed the red line,” Gallant wrote on X, minutes after the Israeli military said it had carried out the strike.