News Mania Desk/ Piyal Chatterjee / 21st September 2024
Israel promised to continue with a new military campaign until it is able to secure the region surrounding the Lebanese border after killing a top Hezbollah commander and other senior figures in the Lebanese movement in an airstrike on Beirut on Friday.
The battle between Israel and the Iran-backed militia has been increasing significantly for the past year. According to the Israeli military and a security source in Lebanon, Ibrahim Aqil was killed in the airstrike together with other top members of an elite Hezbollah unit.Just after midnight, Hezbollah announced Aqil’s passing and referred to him as “one of its top leaders” without giving any information on how he passed away.
Aqil was slain in the Dahiyeh area of southern Beirut, according to a second statement released later by Hezbollah, in what it described “treacherous Israeli assassination”.
At least 14 people have died as a result of the strike, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, and more deaths are likely as rescue crews continue their work into the night. Whether Aqil or any other Hezbollah commanders were included in the toll was not disclosed by the ministry.
Nine of the injured were listed as critically ill, according to the ministry’s earlier estimate of at least 66 injuries.At least six other Hezbollah commanders perished after multiple missiles crashed through a building’s garage opening, according to a second security source. As Aqil met with other commanders within the structure, the explosion tore into the lower levels.Hezbollah claimed in its comments to have lost a number of additional individuals, although it did not say if they were fighters or commanders.
As a show of support for Palestinians in Israel’s almost one-year-old war against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah started firing rockets into Israel in October, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes on both sides of the border.
Israel has declared it will use force if required to guarantee its citizens’ ability to return to northern Israel. Israel last engaged in a full-scale conflict with Hezbollah eighteen years ago.Aqil was the acting head of the Radwan special forces unit, according to the Israeli military, which also claimed to have assassinated him and about ten other senior officers during their meeting. According to Reuters, Aqil was a member of Hezbollah’s elite military council.
Following two days of attacks in which its members’ pagers and walkie-talkies exploded, killing 37 and injuring hundreds, the strike dealt Hezbollah even another blow. Although Israel has not acknowledged or denied being involved, it was widely assumed that country was behind those assaults.Local media stated that people had congregated close to the scene and that they were looking for missing persons, the majority of them were children. Hours after the strike, drones were still buzzing over the southern neighborhoods of Beirut.
The U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine-Hennis Plasschaert, said Friday’s strike in a densely populated area of Beirut’s southern suburbs was part of “an extremely dangerous cycle of violence with devastating consequences. This must stop now.”
