Israel strikes south Beirut, targeting Hezbollah commander

Israel attacked Hezbollah positions south of Beirut on Tuesday in retaliation for rocket fire from Lebanon last weekend that killed 12 children and said it targeted the commander who carried out the attack.

“The IDF carried out a targeted strike in Beirut against the commander responsible for the killing of children and a large number of other Israeli civilians in Majdal Shams,” the Israeli military said in a statement, referring to the Druze Arab town in the annexed Golan Heights where the children were killed on Saturday.

A source close to the Iran-backed Islamic Republic militant group confirmed that the attack targeted “a key commander” and was carried out near the group’s decision-making body, the Shura Council.

The source added that the attack left two people dead, but could not confirm whether the commander was among them.

Minutes after the explosion hit Beirut, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant posted on the social media site X that “Hezbollah has crossed a red line.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday threatened a “harsh response” to the attack, which Israel and the United States have blamed on Hezbollah, but the group has denied responsibility.

Following Saturday’s attack, the international community moved quickly to prevent an escalation that could lead to the first all-out conflict between the two countries since 2006.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bouhabib said on Monday he had received assurances from international diplomats that there would be only a limited response.

“Israel will escalate in a limited way and Hezbollah will respond in a limited way… These are the guarantees we have received,” Bouhabib said in an interview with local broadcaster Al-Jadeed.

Analysts told AFP they also expected Israel to moderate its actions as Israeli leaders fear being drawn into a second war while its troops are still fighting in the Gaza Strip.

‘Constant anxiety’

According to an AFP tally, at least 531 people have been killed on the Lebanese side in the almost daily cross-border fighting, most of them militants, but at least 105 civilians have been killed.

According to the military, the violence has so far killed 22 soldiers and 25 civilians on the Israeli side (including in the Golan Heights).

In more deadly violence early Tuesday, Israeli medics said a 30-year-old civilian was killed in the northern kibbutz Hagoshrim, and the military said it killed a Hezbollah fighter in an overnight raid.

Druze residents of Majdal Shams — most of whom reject Israeli citizenship and consider themselves Syrians — objected to threats of retaliation for the deadly attack.

After the last victim of the rocket attack was buried, large numbers of residents took to the streets to protest Netanyahu’s visit.

Nabih Abu Saleh, a medic from Majdal Shams, told AFP his community was “against any Israeli response” and asked: “Who will we attack? The people of Syria and Lebanon?”

A French diplomat earlier told AFP that Paris was “fully appealing to all parties, along with other partners, especially the United States, to show restraint and not to get involved in the escalating violence”.

Several international airlines suspended flights to Beirut ahead of Israel’s retaliatory action, but Mohammed Huth, chairman of Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines, said Beirut Airport, its only international airport, “is not under any threat and it should be a neutral place,” according to state media.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese public is also gripped by worry, with mother of two Cosette Beshara describing her life as “in a constant state of anxiety.”

“I always wonder how I will escape with my children if war breaks out,” the 40-year-old said, adding that “life in Lebanon goes on… but it’s always shrouded in anxiety.”

Operation Khan Yunis

Hezbollah said its attacks on northern Israel were in solidarity with Hamas and the people of Gaza, which has been under an Israeli siege since October 7.

Hamas attacks on southern Israel, which sparked the war, have killed 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

The militants also took 251 hostages, 111 of whom remain in Gaza, and the military said 39 had died.

Israel’s retaliatory military operations in Gaza have killed at least 39,400 people, according to the Hamas-controlled territory’s health ministry, which did not provide specific details on civilian and militant deaths.

Fighting continues in the Gaza Strip, with the region’s civil defense agency saying on Tuesday that about 300 people were killed in the southern city of Khan Yunis during an Israeli military operation that began on July 22.

“Since the start of Israel’s ground invasion of eastern Khan Yunis province, civil defence and medical teams have recovered the remains of around 300 martyrs, many of them already decomposed,” Mahmoud Basar, spokesman for the Israeli news agency IRNA, told AFP.

The military meanwhile said it had completed an operation in the Khan Yunis area, which saw heavy fighting earlier this year, and had killed “more than 150 terrorists”.