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Israel claimed to have killed a top Hizbollah commander, Ibrahim Qobeissi, head of the Iran-backed militant group’s missiles division, in an airstrike that rocked the southern suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday afternoon.
Hizbollah has not commented on the claim and it remains unclear whether Qobeissi was actually inside the building that was hit. Lebanese authorities said six people were killed and 15 injured in the attack.
“Qobeissi was a significant source of knowledge in the field of missiles and had close ties to senior military leaders in Hizbollah,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement, naming him as head of the group’s Missiles and Rockets Force.
If confirmed, Tuesday’s strike would mark the latest in a string of killings of senior Hizbollah figures. On Saturday, an Israeli attack on Beirut killed Hizbollah’s special operations commander Ibrahim Aqil along with 15 other operatives, including what Israel said was the “senior chain of command of the Radwan Force”, an elite unit within the group.
The strikes have added pressure on Hizbollah, which has suffered one of its most devastating weeks on record after Israel’s military launched a massive bombardment of southern and eastern Lebanon, claiming on Tuesday to have hit 3,000 Hizbollah targets in the past two days.
At least 558 people have been killed, including 50 children and 94 women, since Israel began its intense air strikes on Monday. Nearly 2,000 more people were wounded, while tens of thousands have fled the bombing in southern Lebanon.
In its statement about its latest strike on Beirut the IDF said Qobeissi joined Hizbollah in the 1980s, after which he held several top roles in the militant group, including as a senior officer in its operations unit in southern Lebanon.
“In these roles, he was responsible for planning and executing numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers,” the IDF said, also claiming that other commanders from the division were with Qobeissi during the attack.
Israel struck a six-storey apartment building in Ghobeiry, a densely populated southern suburb of Beirut where Hizbollah has a dominating presence.
A Hizbollah official shared an image on social media of the building with its top floor reduced to rubble. Debris littered the street, dust filled the air, and cars were damaged near the site of attack, videos on social media showed.
It comes after Israel’s military chief said the IDF would accelerate attacks on Hizbollah.
Cartography by Steven Bernard and Chris Cook
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