Israel on Sunday claimed it had carried out an air strike targeting Hezbollah’s chief of staff in Beirut, leaving a smoking hole in the side of an apartment building and debris scattered in the street, according to AFP journalists.
Lebanon’s health ministry reported at least one person was killed in the strike and 21 people were wounded, calling it a “preliminary toll”.
The strike took place in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a densely populated area where Hezbollah holds sway, and caused “injuries and significant damage”, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA).
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office claimed he had given the orders for the attack, the latest against a target in Lebanon, despite a year-long ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
“A short while ago, in the heart of Beirut, the IDF (Israeli military) attacked the Hezbollah chief of staff, ” the premier’s office said in a statement. “Israel is determined to act to achieve its objectives everywhere and at all times.”
An AFP correspondent at the scene said the strike hit the third and fourth floors of a nine-storey building, with ambulances gathered around it and rescuers inspecting the apartments.
NNA reported three missiles were fired at the building in the Haret Hreik area, damaging vehicles and other nearby structures.
A senior US official said Israel did not notify the United States in advance about its strike, an Axios reporter said on Sunday in a post on X.
The official said the administration was informed immediately after the strike and a second senior US official said Washington knew for days that Israel was planning to escalate strikes in Lebanon, the post read.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun called on the international community to intervene firmly to stop Israeli attacks on the country after Sunday’s deadly strike.
In a statement, Aoun said Lebanon “reiterates its call to the international community to assume its responsibility and intervene firmly and seriously to stop the attacks on Lebanon and its people”.
Israel has carried out near-daily strikes in Lebanon since the November 2024 ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, usually saying it is striking members of the group in the country’s south and east.
Sunday’s strike, however, was the first on Beirut’s southern suburbs since June 5, when Israel said it hit a Hezbollah drone factory.
It follows an earlier strike on the southern town of Aita al-Shaab, which the Lebanese health ministry said killed one person.
Hezbollah was weakened by its fight with Israel, in which it engaged in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza in October 2023 with cross-border exchanges of fire that later escalated into two months of full-blown war.
Since then, Lebanon has come under increasing Israeli and American pressure to disarm Hezbollah, a move that the group has rejected.
Netanyahu had insisted earlier on Sunday that Israel would do “everything necessary” to stop Hezbollah from regrouping in Lebanon.
