Israel 'kills top Hezbollah official' during air strikes on central Beirut

Hezbollah’s chief spokesman was killed in an Israeli airstrike on central Beirut today, an official with the militant group said.

Earlier, Israeli strikes killed at least 12 people in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been at war with the Palestinian Hamas for more than a year, Hezbollah claimed.

The latest in a series of targeted killings of senior Hezbollah officials came as Lebanese officials were considering a United States-led cease-fire proposal.

Israel is also understood to have bombed several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has long been headquartered, after warning people to evacuate.

Mohammed Afif, the head of media relations for Hezbollah, was killed in a strike on the Arab socialist Baath party’s office in central Beirut, according to a Hezbollah official who spoke on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorised to brief reporters.

Afif had remained especially visible after the eruption of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah in September and the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, also targeted by an Israeli airstrike.

Last month, Afif was forced to wrap up a press conference in Beirut hastily ahead of Israeli strikes.

An Associated Press photographer at the scene of Sunday’s strike saw four lifeless bodies and four wounded people, but there was no official word on the toll.

People could be seen fleeing the neighbourhood. There was no comment from the Israeli military.

Suheil Halabi, who witnessed the strike, said: “I was asleep and awoke from the sound of the strike, and people screaming, and cars and gunfire.

“I was startled, honestly. This is the first time I experience it so close.”

The last Israeli strike in central Beirut was on October 10, when 22 people were killed in strikes on two locations.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel the day after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack ignited the war in Gaza.

Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes in Lebanon and the conflict steadily escalated, erupting into all-out war in September. Israeli forces invaded Lebanon on October 1.

Hezbollah has continued to fire dozens of projectiles into Israel each day and has expanded their range to the central part of the country. A rocket barrage on the northern city of Haifa on Saturday damaged a synagogue and wounded two civilians.

More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the country’s Health Ministry, and over 1.2 million driven from their homes. It is not known how many of the dead are Hezbollah fighters.

On the Israeli side, Hezbollah’s aerial attacks have killed at least 76 people, including 31 soldiers, and caused some 60,000 people to flee from communities in the north.

Israeli strikes killed six people in Nuseirat and another four in Bureij, two built-up refugee camps in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

Another two people were killed in a strike on Gaza’s main north-south highway, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah, which received all 12 bodies.

The war between Israel and Hamas began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7. last year, killing about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and abducting around 250 others. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead.

The Health Ministry in Gaza says around 43,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but has said women and children make up more than half the fatalities.

Around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced, and large areas of the territory have been flattened by Israeli bombardment and ground operations.