A large-scale Israeli airstrike conducted without warning on a central Beirut building killed at least eleven people and wounded scores more, Lebanese officials said, with media reports indicating that the strike targeted a top Hezbollah leader.
The strike was an attempt to kill top Hezbollah commander Muhammad Haydar, the al-Arabiya news site reported. The report was later confirmed by an Israeli defense source to the Kan public broadcaster.
The strike on central Beirut, which appeared to have used bunker-buster bombs, came as the Israeli Air Force conducted several waves of strikes on Hezbollah targets in Hezbollah’s Dahiyah stronghold in Beirut’s south. The Israel Defense Forces issued evacuation warnings ahead of those strikes.
Haydar’s fate was not immediately clear, and neither the IDF nor Hezbollah have commented on the strike.
Similar strikes carried out without warning outside of the Dahiyah have tended to target high-level Hezbollah members.
Haydar is a member of Hezbollah’s top military body, the Jihad Council, though his exact current position in the Iran-backed terror group is currently unknown. According to Kan, Haydar and another top Hezbollah commander, Haytham Ali Tabataba’i, have been Hezbollah’s de-facto military leaders since Israel killed the terror group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, along with most of the group’s top military brass in a wave of recent strikes.
A Hezbollah parliamentarian between 2005 and 2009, Haydar had been a close advisor to Nasrallah until the latter was assassinated in September. In 2019, the United States listed Haydar as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” for his role in Hezbollah.
The strike said to have targeted Haydar came as a rocket barrage from Lebanon triggered sirens in Haifa and surrounding communities. The IDF said that the barrage comprised five rockets, several of which were intercepted by air defenses.
IDF says it launched additional wave of strikes targeting Hezbollah in Beirut
The IDF says it carried out another wave of airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs this morning.
The sites hit by fighter jets included Hezbollah command rooms, according to the military.
Before the strikes, the IDF issued evacuation warnings to civilians in the area.
The IDF has not yet commented on a strike in central Beirut overnight, which reportedly targeted top Hezbollah commander Muhammad Haydar.
Meanwhile, the IDF issues evacuation warnings for five more buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs ahead of airstrikes on Hezbollah assets.
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