Israel says top Hezbollah commander killed in Lebanon ‘targeted strike’

globalnews.ca:

Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander in an airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday, the Israeli military and two security sources in Lebanon said, sharply escalating the year-long conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

Israeli military said that Aqil, who served on Hezbollah’s top military body, was the acting commander of the group’s elite Radwan force and that he was killed along with other senior commanders of the unit.

One of the security sources in Lebanon said he was killed with members of the Radwan unit as they held a meeting.

The strike killed nine people and wounded 59 others, Lebanon’s health ministry said, in a preliminary toll.

The strike inflicted another blow on Hezbollah after the group suffered an unprecedented attack earlier this week in which pagers and walkie talkies used by its members exploded, killing 37 people and wounding thousands. That attack was widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed or denied its involvement.

The civil defense said its rescue teams were searching for people under the rubble of two buildings hit in Friday’s strike.

The Israeli military said it had conducted a “targeted strike” in Beirut, without giving further details.

It marks the second time in less than two months that Israel has targeted a leading Hezbollah military commander in Beirut. In July, an Israeli airstrike killed Fuad Shukr, the group’s top military commander.

Aqil has a $7 million bounty on his head from the United States over his link to the deadly bombing of Marines in Lebanon in 1983, according to the U.S. State Department website.

The Israeli military reported warning sirens sounded in northern Israel following the Beirut strike. Israeli media