Beirut, Sep 20 (EFE).- Israel bombed the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut on Friday, killing at least nine people and injuring 59 others, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said.
Of the injured, eight were in “critical condition,” the ministry’s emergency operations center said in a statement.
The airstrikes targeted Dahye, a stronghold of the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported that four missiles struck an apartment building in a densely populated area, with five children among the fatalities.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that it had “conducted a targeted strike in Beirut.”
The IDF later confirmed that Ibrahim Aqil, a senior Hezbollah commander, in addition to other of its elite Radwan forces, were killed in the strike. Aqil was reportedly wanted by the United States for his alleged role in the 1983 bombing of a US embassy.
This is the third time Israel has bombed Dahye since the cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah began on Oct. 8, the day after Israel launched its operation against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The previous strikes killed the number two of the political bureau in Hamas, Saleh al Arouri, in January, and Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukr, at the end of July.
Friday’s bombings come on the same day that around 120 Hezbollah rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel. No casualties were reported, the IDF said.
The developments are the latest in the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel that significantly escalated this week.
Thousands of portable communications devices belonging to of Hezbollah detonated across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people and injuring nearly 3,000. EFE
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