Israel-Hamas war latest: Israel claims death of Hezbollah commander as Beirut toll rises

Israel claimed the death of a senior Hezbollah military official after a rare Israeli airstrike on Beirut as the death toll rose Saturday to at least 31 people, with dozens more wounded, shortly after Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets.

The strikes are part of a new cycle of escalation between the enemies that has raised fears of a full-out war erupting in the Middle East, particularly after two separate attacks in Lebanon in which communication devices exploded simultaneously around the country, reportedly killing 37 people and injuring more than 3,400 others.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire regularly since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel ignited the Israeli military’s devastating offensive in Gaza.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory during the nearly 1-year-old Israel-Hamas war. The ministry does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count but says a little over half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Here’s the latest:

BEIRUT — The death toll from an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb has risen to 31, including seven women and three children, Lebanon’s health minister said Saturday.

Firass Abiad told reporters that 68 people were also wounded in Friday’s airstrike, of whom 15 remain in hospital, in the deadliest Israeli strike on Beirut since the Israel-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006.

Among the dead was Ibrahim Akil, a Hezbollah commander who was in charge of the group’s elite Radwan Forces, and about a dozen members of the militant group who were meeting in the basement of the building that was destroyed.

Israel launched the rare airstrike in the densely populated southern Beirut neighborhood on Friday afternoon during the rush hour when people were returning home from work and students were leaving schools.

On Saturday morning, Hezbollah’s media office took journalists to the site of the airstrike where workers were still digging through the rubble.

Lebanese troops cordoned off the area around the building that was destroyed as members of the Lebanese Red Cross stood nearby to take any recovered bodies from under the rubble.

UNITED NATIONS — Weaponizing ordinary communication devices represents a new development in warfare, and targeting thousands of Lebanese people using pagers, two-way radios and electronic equipment without their knowledge is a violation of international human rights law, the United Nations human rights chief said Friday.

Volker Türk told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council there must be an independent and transparent investigation of the two attacks in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday where these devices exploded, reportedly killing 37 people and injuring more than 3,400 others.

“Those who ordered and carried out these attacks must be held to account,” he said.

Lebanon has blamed Israel for the attacks, which appeared to target Hezbollah militants but also saw many civilian casualties, including children. Hezbollah has fought many conflicts with Israel, including a war in 2006, and it has conducted near-daily strikes against Israel to support Hamas militants who attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

When reporters asked Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon about speculation Israel was behind the two explosions, he said: “We are not commenting.”

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