Qassam Muaddi
Mondoweiss / September 20, 2024
Israel bombed a residential building in Beirut’s southern Dahiya district on Friday killing nine, including five children, and wounding 59. Reports indicate the strike targeted Ibrahim Aqil, one of Hezbollah’s top military commanders.
Israel bombed a residential building in Beirut’s southern Dahiya district on Friday killing nine people and wounding 59 others, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health as of the time of writing. The Israeli army announced in a statement shortly after the attack that the strike had targeted one of Hezbollah’s top military commanders, Ibrahim Aqil.
The statement claimed that the Israeli army had successfully assassinated Aqil, who it described as the acting commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force and the mastermind of a Hezbollah plan to “occupy the Galilee.”
“Along with Aqil, the top operatives and chain of command of the Radwan Force were eliminated,” the statement read.
Hezbollah later confirmed that Aqil was indeed killed in the attack, according to Al-Jazeera.
The targeted building was located in a crowded residential and commercial area, which was sealed off by the Lebanese army and security forces as rescue teams rushed to the scene to begin rescue efforts. The Lebanese Civil Defense reported that two buildings had collapsed in the al-Jamous neighbourhood in Beirut’s district.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that at least five children are among the dead in the Israeli bombing.
The Israeli airstrike comes two days after Israel’s unprecedented pager explosion attacks that took place Tuesday and Wednesday across Lebanon, killing 32 people and wounding over 3,000 others.
On Thursday, Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Hasan Nasrallah, vowed retaliation against Israel for the electronics explosion attacks, affirming that the Lebanese “support” front against Israel will remain active until it ends its war on Gaza.
Following today’s most recent bombing, the White House said in a statement that Washington had no prior knowledge of Israel’s intention to bomb the Lebanese capital. Lebanon’s Prime Minister said that “the bombing of a civilian residential area demonstrates that Israel gives no importance to human, legal, or moral imperatives.”
Hezbollah has already launched a large rocket attack on the upper Galilee and the city of Safad in response to the Israeli strike. The military wing of Hezbollah, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, has also announced in a statement that it had launched a barrage of rockets on Israel’s central military intelligence base in the Galilee. According to the statement, the Israeli military base was allegedly responsible for the bombing. Israel’s Channel 13 has reported that at least 170 rockets have been fired from Lebanon on the Galilee as of the time of writing.
The background: paving the way for all-out war
Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in cross-border attacks since the start of the war on Gaza last October. At the time, Hezbollah started what it called its “support front for Gaza.” The attacks on both sides steadily grew in intensity, with Israel assassinating several Hezbollah leaders, including top military commander Fouad Shukr in late July. Hezbollah responded in late August with a drone attack on Israel’s military intelligence headquarters near Tel Aviv
Earlier in the week, on Monday, Israel officially added a new goal to the ongoing war: to return some 60,000 Israeli residents to the north following their evacuation since the start of the war. Israel’s war minister, Yoav Gallant, stated that Israel would move the main war effort to the Lebanese front, while on Thursday, Nasrallah reaffirmed that the Gaza and Lebanese fronts “will not be separated,” adding that Israelis “will not return to the north” before Israel ends its war on Gaza.
Last week, U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Israel prior to the electronics explosion attacks on Lebanon in an attempt to defuse tensions along the southern Lebanese border. Israeli sources reported that the U.S. had presented Israel with a proposal to define its borders with Lebanon, which Israel rejected.
Last month, possibilities of total war between Israel and Lebanon reached new heights after Israel’s assassination of Fouad Shukr. At the time, the U.S. had moved large military forces to the Middle East, including several aircraft carriers, as a measure to deter Hezbollah from a strident response.
Last week, the largest U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Roosevelt, was withdrawn from the Persian Gulf a few days before Israel escalated its threats against Lebanon and the electronics explosion attacks.
Qassam Muaddi is the Palestine Staff Writer for Mondoweiss
