The Israeli military announced that its airstrike Friday on a neighborhood of Beirut killed Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah military official. There was no immediate confirmation of his death from Hezbollah. The Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Lebanon's capital killed at least nine people, wounded nearly 60 others, and flattened two apartment buildings, according to Lebanese health officials. The AP reports that this was the deadliest such Israeli attack on Lebanon's capital since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Israeli military also claimed that its strike killed other "top operatives" of Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force, without elaborating. Sources tell Reuters that the strike hit a meeting of senior Radwan members. A Hezbollah official has confirmed that Akil was supposed to be in the building in the Dahiya district that was hit. Akil has served on Hezbollah's highest military body, the Jihad Council, and has been sanctioned by the United States for being involved in two terrorist attacks in 1983 that killed more than 300 people at the US Embassy in Beirut and the US Marine Corps barracks.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said he was not aware of any Israeli notification to the US before the strike, Reuters reports. He said Americans should avoid traveling to Lebanon—or, if they are already there, leave. He added, referring to the Israel-Lebanon border, "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." The Beirut strikes followed two waves of apparently remotely detonated explosions in Lebanon targeting pagers and walkie talkies belonging to the Hezbollah members. The attacks, widely blamed on Israel, which has not commented on them, killed at least 37 people—including two children—and wounded about 3,000. (More Hezbollah stories.)
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