Lebanon’s Hamas leader killed in airstrike as Israel says it has killed Hezbollah’s 7th commander

The Palestinian terror group Hamas said an Israeli airstrike on Monday killed its leader in Lebanon.

Hamas said Fatah Sharif and his family were killed in a strike on the Al-Buss refugee camp in the southern port of Tyre.

In the past week, Israel has frequently targeted areas south of Beirut, where Hezbollah is strong – including a major strike on Friday where killed Hezbollah’s long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

But on Monday, the first Israeli airstrike in central Beirut in a year of unrest leveled an apartment building.

It came after Israel attacked Lebanon a few days ago and killed dozens of people, with Hezbollah sustaining heavy blows to its command structure, including the death of Nasrallah.

Israeli officials had no immediate comment.

An airstrike hit a multi-story building in central Beirut, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. Videos show ambulances and a crowd gathered near a building in a predominantly Sunni district on a busy street full of shops.

This plane incident killed at least one person and injured 16, said a Lebanese Civil Defense official, who did not want to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He said the person killed was a member of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, a Sunni political and terrorist group affiliated with Hezbollah.

A left-wing Palestinian group in Lebanon said three of its members were killed in an airstrike. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said in a statement early Monday that its soldiers and security forces in Lebanon and a third member were killed in the attack.

Neither militant group has played a major role in the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Shiite group Hezbollah.

Earlier, Hezbollah confirmed that Nabil Kaouk, the deputy head of the Supreme Council, was killed on Saturday, making him Seventh Hezbollah leader killed in Israeli strikes in a little over a week. They include the group’s founders who have avoided death or imprisonment for decades.

Hezbollah also confirmed that Ali Karaki, another top commander, was killed in the strike that killed Nasrallah. Israel says at least 20 Hezbollah fighters were killed, including one who was in charge of Nasrallah’s security detail.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said at least 105 people died in airstrikes across the country on Sunday. Two strikes near the city of Sidon, about 28 kilometers south of Beirut, killed at least 32 people, the ministry said. Separately, Israeli strikes in the northern province of Baalbek Hermel killed 21 people and wounded at least 47.

Lebanese media reported a number of strikes in the center, east and west of the Bekaa and south, apart from the strikes in Beirut. Israel says it is targeting terrorists, but the strikes hit buildings where civilians lived and the death toll is expected to rise.

In a video of the strike in Sidon, verified by the AP, the building swayed before collapsing as neighbors filmed it. Another television channel asked viewers to pray for the family trapped under the rubble, and post their photos, as rescuers failed to reach them. The Ministry of Health in Lebanon reported that at least 14 medics were killed in two days in the south.

President Biden said on Sunday that he will soon speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and believes that a serious war in the Middle East must be avoided. “It must be so,” said Mr. Biden told reporters at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware when he boarded Air Force One bound for Washington.

Biden says Nasrallah’s death is “a measure of justice”

On Saturday, Mr. Biden said NasrallahIsraeli casualties in the air strike were a “a measure of justice” because of his many victims.

In a statement issued by the White House, the president said, “Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, are responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans during the fourteen years of their reign of terror,” including thousands of Israelis and Lebanese citizens.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Sunday that Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon had “wiped out” Hezbollah’s structure, but warned the group would work quickly to rebuild it.

“I think people are safer without him walking around,” Kirby said of Nasrallah. “But they’re going to try to recover. We’re looking at how they’re going to try to fill this leadership void. It’s going to be difficult. … Most of their control structures are gone.”

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Kirby sidestepped questions about whether the Biden administration agreed with how the Israelis targeted Hezbollah leaders. The White House continues to call on Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a 21-day moratorium proposed by the US, France and other countries during the UN General Assembly last week.

Meanwhile, the remnants of Friday’s strike that killed Nasrallah are still smoldering. Smoke billows from the rubble as people flock to the area, some to check if their houses are left and others to pay their respects, pray or see the damage.

In response to a sharp increase in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, Hezbollah sharply increased its rocket attacks last week, from a few dozen to several hundred daily, the Israeli military said. These attacks injured a few people and caused damage, but most of the rockets and drones were intercepted by Israeli air defense systems or fell into open areas.

The force says its strikes have reduced Hezbollah’s capabilities and that the number of launches would have been much higher had Hezbollah not been struck.

Israel says it has reached the goals of the Houthis

Also on Sunday, Israel’s military said dozens of its warplanes had struck the Houthis in Yemen in the latest attack. The military said it was targeting power plants and seaports in the city of Hodeida.

The Houthis launched a missile attack on Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport on Saturday when Netanyahu arrived. The Houthi press office said the Israeli strikes hit the ports of Hodeida and Ras Issa, as well as two power plants in the city of Hodeida, which is a stronghold of the Iran-backed rebels. The Houthi Ministry of Health said the strikes killed four people and injured 40 others.

The Houthis said they had taken precautionary measures before the strikes, spilling oil stored in ports, according to Nasruddin Ammer, deputy director of the Houthi press office. He said in the X post that these strikes will not stop rebel attacks on shipping lanes and Israel.

A wave of Israeli airstrikes in large parts of Lebanon have killed more than 1,030 people – including 156 women and 87 children – in less than two weeks, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes. The government estimates that around 250,000 are in shelters, with three to four times as many staying with friends or relatives, or pitching tents on the streets.

Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group and political party backed by Iran, Israel’s arch regional rival, rose to prominence in the region after fighting a devastating month-long war with Israel in 2006 that ended in a draw.

Kaouk was a veteran member of Hezbollah dating back to the 1980s and served as Hezbollah’s military commander in southern Lebanon during the 2006 war with Israel. The United States announced sanctions against him in 2020.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel after that The attack on Oct. 7 of Hamas came out of Gaza it caused a war there. Hezbollah and Hamas are self-proclaimed allies of the Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance” against Israel.

The conflict slowly escalated to the brink of an all-out war, raising fears of a global conflagration.

Israel says it is willing to return about 60,000 of its citizens to northern communities that were displaced nearly a year ago. Hezbollah has said it will only stop firing rockets if there is a ceasefire in Gaza, which has proved difficult despite months of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas led by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.