Nada Homsi
The National / September 20, 2024
Lebanese group confirms senior official died in Israeli attack on Beirut suburb.
Senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil was killed in an Israeli strike that destroyed a residential building in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh on Friday.
The attack killed at least 14 people, including Mr Aqil, and wounded 66, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Two Israeli missiles launched by an F-35 jet levelled the building where Mr Aqil was staying. A statement by Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari claimed the strike took out Aqil and “top operatives and the chain of command of the Radwan unit”.
Aqil and other commanders of the elite Hezbollah force were reportedly meeting underneath the building, according to Hagari.
Aqil sat on Hezbollah’s top military body, the Jihad Council. Israeli media reports allege he became Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s second-in-command following Israel’s assassination in July of Fouad Shukr, who had previously held the role.
A Hezbollah official initially declined to comment on whether Aqil was the attack’s target and whether Israel had succeeded in its assassination attempt, saying that the “search for a body is still ongoing”. In a later statement, the group confirmed his death and praised him as “one of its great leaders”.
Aqil, also known as Hajj Tahseen, was responsible for the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, conducted by the Islamic Jihad Organisation – a precursor to Hezbollah. Some 63 people were killed in the attack. He was also involved in an assault on a US Marines barracks in October 1983 that killed 241 US troops. He also directed several operations in which US and German citizens were taken hostage by Hezbollah.
Hagari said Aqil was behind other attacks against Israel. He was “responsible for the anti-tank fire at the Avivim post in 2019, for the attack at the Megiddo Junction in 2023, and for attempted infiltration of Hezbollah terrorists into the territory of the State of Israel, in order to murder and kill civilians and soldiers”, he said.
The Israeli army also alleges that Aqil was one of the primary commanders responsible for drawing up Hezbollah battle plans for a takeover of northern Israel’s Galilee region. In April 2023, the US Department of State placed a bounty on Aqil, offering $7 million for information.
Nada Homsi is a correspondent at The National’s Beirut bureau
