BEIRUT: Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander in an air strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday, the Israeli military and two security sources in Lebanon said, sharply escalating the year-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israeli military said that Aqil, who served on Hezbollah's top military body, was the acting commander of the group's elite Radwan force and that he was killed along with other senior commanders of the unit.
One of the security sources in Lebanon said he was killed with members of the Radwan unit as they held a meeting.
The strike killed ten people and wounded 59 others, Lebanon's health ministry said, in a preliminary toll.
The strike inflicted another blow on Hezbollah after the group suffered an unprecedented attack earlier this week in which pagers and walkie talkies used by its members exploded, killing 37 people and wounding thousands. That attack was widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed or denied its involvement.
The civil defence said its rescue teams were searching for people under the rubble of two buildings hit in Friday's strike. The Israeli military said it had conducted a "targeted strike" in Beirut, without giving further details.
It marks the second time in less than two months that Israel has targeted a leading Hezbollah military commander in Beirut. In July, an Israeli air strike killed Fuad Shukr, the group's top military commander.
Aqil has a $7-million bounty on his head from the US over his link to the deadly bombing of Marines in Lebanon in 1983, according to the US State Department website.
The Israeli military reported warning sirens sounded in northern Israel following the Beirut strike. Israeli media reported heavy rocket fire in northern Israel.
Hezbollah said it had fired Katyusha rockets at what it described as the main intelligence headquarters in northern Israel "which is responsible for assassinations".
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said he was not aware of any Israeli notification to the United States before the Beirut strike, adding that Americans were strongly urged not to travel to Lebanon, or to leave if they are already there.
"War is not inevitable up there at the Blue Line, and we're going to continue to do everything we can to try to prevent it," said Kirby, referring to the frontier between Lebanon and Israel.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden said he was working to allow people to return to their homes on the Israeli-Lebanon border, in his first comments since a wave of explosions targeting the Hezbollah sent tensions soaring.
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. - Reuters
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