Israeli strike targets senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon’s capital Beirut

An Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday targeted the head of the armed group Hezbollah’s operations room but the Iran-backed group said he was still alive.

The sources named the target as Mohsen Shukur but said he was also known as Fuad Shukr. Fuad Shukr was sanctioned by the United States in 2015.

Local media reported multiple civilian casualties.

Sources familiar with the matter said that Israel informed Washington ahead of the strike. Asked about this, a US defense official told Al Arabiya English that “conversations among leadership are confidential and will remain that way as a matter of national security.”

A loud blast was heard and a plume of smoke could be seen rising above the southern suburbs - a stronghold of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah - at around 7:40 p.m. (1640 GMT), a Reuters witness said.

The Israeli military said it carried out a strike in Beirut that targeted a commander responsible for the killing of children in last week’s rocket attack on the Golan Heights.

“The [Israeli army] carried out a targeted strike in Beirut on the commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians,” the military said in a statement, referring to the Druze Arab town.

Lebanon’s state-run national news agency said an Israeli strike had targeted the area around Hezbollah’s Shura Council in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of the capital.

An AFP photographer on the ground said the last floor of an eight-story building was hit and that ambulances had converged at the site of the strike.

Beirut has been on edge for days ahead of an anticipated Israeli attack in retaliation for a strike on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed a dozen youngsters.

Israel and the United States have blamed Hezbollah for the attack. Hezbollah has denied responsibility.

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Lebanese armed group Hezbollah had “crossed the red line,” after the military carried out the targeted strike in south Beirut.

“Hezbollah crossed the red line,” Gallant wrote on X, minutes after the Israeli military said it had carried out the strike.