Israel strikes in Lebanon kill top Hezbollah commanders — as it happened

Members of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Unit were holding a meeting in the destroyed building. The Israeli military claim that ten have been killed, alongside Aqil

AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

A senior United Nations official has told the security council that further violence between Israel and Iranian-aligned groups risked igniting a far more damaging conflict.

“We risk seeing a conflagration that could dwarf even the devastation and suffering witnessed so far,” Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN political affairs chief , told the 15-member council, which met about attacks that have taken place on Hezbollah this week.

“It is not too late to avoid such folly. There is still room for diplomacy,” she said. “I also strongly urge member states with influence over the parties to leverage it now.”

Robert Wood, the deputy US ambassador to the UN, told the council: “It is imperative that even as facts emerge about the latest incidents — in which I reiterate, the United States played no role — all parties refrain from any actions which could plunge the region into a devastating war.”

He added that the US expects all parties to comply with international humanitarian law and take all reasonable steps to minimize harm to civilians, especially in densely populated areas.

Iran’s foreign ministry has condemned an Israeli air strike in Beirut that killed a top commander of the Tehran-backed Hezbollah movement and several others as an attempt to broaden the war in Gaza.

“The brutal and vicious air strike of the Zionist regime on Beirut … is a gross violation of international law and regulations, as well as the violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and national security,” Nasser Kanani, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, said in a statement.

“There is no doubt that the Zionist regime seeks to intensify the tensions and broaden the geography of war and conflict in the region,” he stated, adding that “such a vicious policy is a clear and maximum threat to international peace and security.”

The United Nations has denounced the detonation of hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon, saying the attack violated international law and could constitute a war crime.

“International humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby-trap devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects,” the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, told the Security Council, adding that it “is a war crime to commit violence intended to spread terror among civilians.”

“I am appalled by the breadth and impact of the attacks,” said Turk.

“These attacks represent a new development in warfare, where communication tools become weapons,” he added.

“This cannot be the new normal.”

Israel has not confirmed or denied involvement in the attack.

Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, has voiced concerns over the possibility of escalation between Israel and Hezbollah during his sixth call with the Israeli defence secretary in less than a week, and has urged a diplomatic resolution to the crisis.

Austin’s focus on diplomacy in his statement came after Yoav Gallant, his counterpart, spoke of a new phase of war.

Israel announced on Friday it killed a top Hezbollah commander, Ibrahim Aqil, and other senior figures in the Lebanese movement in an airstrike on Beirut.

Lloyd Austin, left, and his counterpart Yoav Gallant have spoken six times over the past week

CHAD J MCNEELEY/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES

The Pentagon said in a statement that Austin reiterated to Gallant “his concern over the current escalation of exchanges between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah.”

That language was identical to a statement from Major General Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, after another call between Austin and Gallant on Thursday.

“The secretary strongly re-emphasised the importance of reaching a diplomatic resolution that enables residents to return safely to their homes on both sides of the border,” the Pentagon said after Friday’s call.

Human rights advocates are calling for an independent investigation into the deadly explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon and Syria, suggesting the blasts may have violated international law if the devices were fashioned as booby traps.

The explosions that have been widely blamed on Israel killed at least 37 people and wounded more than 3,000, including many members of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah. Israel has not confirmed or denied involvement.

The Lebanese health ministry has raised the death toll to 14 as “the work of removing rubble continues”. The statement says that rescue teams expect it to increase again as more people are found under the rubble.

The Radwan unit, which was commanded by Ibrahim Aqil, is Hezbollah’s most formidable offensive force and its fighters are trained in cross-border infiltration, a source close to the group told AFP.

This specialist unit includes experienced fighters, some of whom have fought outside Lebanon, including in Syria, where Hezbollah has openly backed the forces of President Assad since 2013.

The US Treasury said Aqil “played a vital role” in the group’s campaign in Syria.

Hezbollah has already lost the commanders of two of its three regional units in the south since October: Mohammed Naameh Nasser, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his car in south Lebanon on July 3, and Taleb Abdallah, killed in a strike on a house in the south a month earlier.

The Radwan unit also lost another top commander, Wissam al-Tawil, who was killed in January.

The Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has said that Israel will not let up following the assassination of senior Hezbollah commanders in Beirut.

“The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes,” he said in a statement on the social media platform X.

He added that the country’s “enemies” would find no refuge in the southern suburb of Beirut, where an air strike killed a top Hezbollah commander.

“Our enemies have no place of refuge — not even the Dahieh in Beirut,” Yoav Gallant said on X, referring to the area where Israel said Ibrahim Aqil, commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit, was killed along with “about ten” other top militants.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, issued a short statement following the assassination of the senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil, declaring Israel’s goals were clear and its actions speak for themselves, Israeli media reported.

The United Nations said it was “very concerned” after Israeli strikes hit the Lebanese capital Beirut, and urged all parties to exercise “maximum restraint.”

“We are, of course, very concerned about the heightened escalation… including the deadly strikes we saw in Beirut today. We urge all parties to de-escalate immediately. All must exercise maximum restraint,” said Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for António Guterres, the UN secretary-general.

The Israeli outlet Haaretz has reported that Ibrahim Aqil, the top Hezbollah commander who Israel claims was killed in today’s strike, was discharged from hospital earlier in the day having been injured in the sweeping attacks on Hezbollah communications devices this week (Edmund Bower writes).

Israeli air force fighter jets conducted the attack, according to the IDF spokesman

FADEL ITANI/AFP

In his speech on Thursday, the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrullah, had claimed that no senior figures within the group carried the model of pager which was targeted, saying “our infrastructure has not been touched” by the attacks.

Ibrahim Aqil, the Hezbollah operations commander killed in an Israeli strike on Friday, had a $7 million bounty on his head for two 1983 Beirut truck bombings that killed more than 300 people at the American embassy and a US Marine Corps barracks.

Aqil, who has also used the aliases Tahsin and Abdelqader, was the second member of Hezbollah’s top military body, the Jihad Council, to be killed in two months after an Israeli strike targeted Fuad Shukr in the same area in July.

Born in a village in Lebanon’s Beqaa valley sometime around 1960, Aqil had joined the other big Lebanese Shia political movement, Amal, before switching to Hezbollah as a founding member, according to a security source.

Further to the US barracks bombings, the US accuses him of directing the abduction of American and German hostages in Lebanon and listed him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2019, putting the $7 million bounty on his head.

Aqil’s cohort of founding Hezbollah operatives helped turn the group from a shadowy militia into Lebanon’s most powerful military and political organisation, pushing Israel from its occupation of the south in 2000 and fighting it again in 2006.

When Shukr was killed in July, it was seen as the heaviest blow to its command structure since the 2008 assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, a founding member and second-in-command of Hezbollah. The killing of Aqil, whose bounty was set by the US at an even higher value than that of Shukr’s, may prove a similar blow.

The Lebanese Health Ministry says the number of people killed in the blast has risen to 12, and the number of injured now stands at 66. Nine of the wounded are in critical condition.

Israel and Hezbollah may be embarking on their first war since 2006, when Israel, responding to a cross-border ambush, launched an aerial campaign and limited ground invasion that came to a standstill more than a month later. An Israeli commission of inquiry called the war a “serious missed opportunity” that ended without victory while Israeli civilians were forced to shelter for weeks from Hezbollah’s rocket fire.

But the war, which devastated Lebanese infrastructure, helped deter Hezbollah and won Israel peace on its northern border until last October, when Hezbollah began a campaign of rocket attacks to support Hamas in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Israelis have fled northern towns as a result and, with the war in Gaza winding down, Israel has signalled a “new phase” in its tactics from retaliatory airstrikes in Lebanon to a looming military campaign.

Eran Etzion, former deputy head of Israel’s national security council, said three scenarios could unfold in the weeks ahead.

Read in full: how could the conflict escalate?

President Biden said on Friday he was “working” on allowing people to return to their homes on the tense Israeli-Lebanon border, in his first comments on the situation since a wave of pager and radio blasts targeting Hezbollah.

Biden added that it was crucial to keep pushing for a Gaza ceasefire to underpin regional peace, despite a media report that his administration had given up hope of securing a truce before he leaves office in January.

Speaking at the start of a cabinet meeting in the White House, Biden told reporters he wanted to “make sure that the people in northern Israel as well as southern Lebanon are able to go back to their homes, to go back safely.”

“And the secretary of state, the secretary of defence, our whole team are working with the intelligence community to try to get that done. We’re going to keep at it until we get it done, but we’ve got a way to go,” Biden said.

Biden also denied that a ceasefire to end Israel’s war in Gaza following the Hamas October 7 attacks was unrealistic, following a Wall Street Journal report which stated that officials believe it is now unlikely.

“If I ever said it’s not realistic, we might as well leave. A lot of things don’t look realistic until we get them done. We have to keep at it,” Biden said.

About ten senior Hezbollah commanders were killed along with Ibrahim Aqil, Israel’s military spokesperson said.

“This elimination is intended to protect the citizens of Israel,” Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman, said in a brief statement to the press, adding that Israel was not seeking regional escalation.

Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman, has taken to X to confirm the death of Aqil.

In a post, Hagari said that “with the precise intelligence direction of the Intelligence Division, Air Force fighter jets targeted the Beirut area and killed Ibrahim Aqil, the head of the Hezbollah terrorist organization’s operations team, the acting commander of the Radwan unit”.

He added: “In the attack, together with Aqil, the top operatives and the chain of command of the Radwan unit were eliminated.”

The Israeli military confirmed on Friday that it had killed the top Hezbollah commander, Ibrahim Aqil, and other senior commanders of the movement’s Radwan special forces unit, in a strike in southern Beirut.

Iran has said that “Israeli madness and arrogance has crossed all lines”, following the latest strike.
The comments were made in a post on X by the Iranian embassy in Lebanon.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the Israeli madness and arrogance that crossed all lines by targeting residential areas in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which resulted in the martyrdom and injury of dozens, including children and women,” it said.

• How near are Hezbollah and Israel to full war? A conflict explained

Earlier this week, the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was injured during the explosions of electronic pagers. Some reports claimed he had lost an eye in the initial round of blasts, but this was denied by his family members.

Residents of Beirut outside of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs reported hearing a large bang at around 3.45pm local time that many took for a sonic boom caused by a low-flying Israeli jet (Edmund Bower writes). Shortly after, smoke and dust rising from the building that was hit was seen rising above the city’s rooftops.

Unlike on Tuesday, when ambulance sirens carrying those wounded by exploding pagers blared throughout the city, the injured have remained localised within the controlled southern suburbs. Hezbollah-affiliated media has reported that all casualties were transferred to hospitals in the vicinity of the attack. It also put out multiple calls for blood donations at those hospitals.

Smoke rises from the southern suburbs of Beirut in Lebanon

MOHAMED AZAKIR/REUTERS

Unconfirmed reports have claimed that the senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil was killed in the Israeli strike on Beirut. Two security sources, in Lebanon and on the Israeli army radio, said that Aqil had died.

One of the security sources said he was killed alongside members of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Unit as they were holding a meeting.

John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman, said he was not aware of any Israel notification to the United States before its strikes in Beirut on Friday commenced, adding that Americans were strongly urged not to travel to Lebanon or to leave if they are already there.

Kirby, speaking to reporters, said he could not comment on the latest strikes but reiterated that the Biden administration is seeking to avoid an escalation in the region.

Lebanese health officials now say at least eight people have been killed by the Israeli strike on southern Beirut. Another 59 people have been injured, Lebanon’s health ministry said in a statement.

There is no official word on the identity of the victims as yet but some local reports claimed as many as five children had been killed in the attack.

Medical staff wait for the arrival of an ambulance following the strikes. Lebanese health officials say that 59 people have been injured in the attacks, alongside the eight confirmed to have died

REUTERS

Lebanese news stations broadcast footage of wounded people being pulled from the ruins of a flattened building as ambulances rushed to the scene of the strike.

In his first response the Lebanese prime minister, Najib Mikati, said the attack demonstrated that Israel “gives no weight to any humanitarian, legal or moral considerations”.

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, has chaired a meeting of the government’s emergency committee, known as Cobra, to discuss the latest situation in Lebanon.

“The foreign secretary has chaired a meeting of Cobra this morning on the latest situation in Lebanon and to discuss ongoing preparedness work, with the risk of escalation remaining high,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.

Israeli media has reported that the target of the airstrike was Ibrahim Aqil, a senior Hezbollah military commander who is also wanted by the US for his role in the 1983 US embassy and marine corps barracks explosions in Beirut that killed hundreds.

Ibrahim Aqil was wanted by the United States for his role in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings

TIMES OF ISRAEL

Aqil is a member of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, which runs its military affairs, and would have been a candidate to become the group’s military commander after an Israeli airstrike killed Fuad Shukr in July. Hezbollah never announced a replacement for Shukr, but would have kept the matter a secret.

• What is Hezbollah in Lebanon — and who are its leaders?

The US had offered up to $7 million for information on Aqil. He was listed as a globally designated terrorist in 2019.

There were earlier reports that Hezbollah had fired as many as 140 rockets towards Israel, with many of these apparently being intercepted, the IDF claimed. The rockets struck areas in northern Israel. Images were later released of firefighters battling fires caused by the rocket barrage.

A firefighter attempts to extinguish flames following a rocket attack in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights

JIM URQUHART/REUTERS

People inspect the site of an Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut

MOHAMED AZAKIR/REUTERS

The Israel Defence Forces said they had conducted an airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, with reports claiming the Dahiyeh suburb, a Hezbollah stronghold, was struck.

An apartment was hit in the blast, with Israeli security sources claiming that a senior Hezbollah figure was targeted.