Hezbollah leaders among 37 killed in Israeli strike in Lebanon – National

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Hezbollah leaders among 37 ******* in ******** strike in Lebanon – National

Hezbollah leaders were among those ******* in an ******** airstrike on a Beirut suburb , *******’s military said Saturday, as Lebanon raised the ****** toll from the ******* to 37, including women and children.

******* and Hezbollah continued to trade ***** Saturday, a day after the airstrike claimed the lives of Ibrahim Akil, who was in charge of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, and Ahmed Wahbi, another senior commander in the group’s military wing.

Firas Abiad told reporters that the ***** included seven women and three children. He said another 68 people were wounded of whom 15 remained in hospital, adding that search and rescue operations were still ongoing, with the number of casualties likely to rise.

The rare strike hit an apartment block in a densely populated south Beirut neighborhood on Friday afternoon during rush hour. It was the deadliest strike targeting the Lebanese capital since the 2006 *******-Hezbollah war.

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Hezbollah confirms more than a dozen operatives were *******

Akil, the main target, had been wanted by the U.S. for years for his alleged role in the 1983 ******** of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and in taking ********* and ******* hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s. He was under U.S. sanctions and the U.S. State Department last year announced a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to his “identification, location, arrest, and/or conviction.”

Wahbi was described as a commander who played major roles within Hezbollah for decades and was imprisoned in an ******** jail in south Lebanon in 1984. Hezbollah said he was one of the “field commanders” of a 1997 ambush in southern Lebanon that left 12 ******** troops *****.

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Hezbollah announced overnight Friday that 15 of its operatives were ******* by ******** forces, but did not elaborate on the location of these deaths. Meanwhile, the ******** army spokesperson, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said on Saturday a total of 16 Hezbollah fighters were ******* in the strike.

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******* earlier said Akil had been meeting with other militants in the basement of the apartment block.

Rescue workers digging through rubble

Lebanese troops cordoned off the area around the destroyed building as members of the Lebanese Red Cross stood nearby to take any bodies recovered from the rubble. On Saturday morning, Hezbollah’s media office took journalists on a tour of the scene of the airstrike where workers were still digging through building’s ruins.

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The Minister of Public Works and Transport Ali Hamieh told reporters at the scene that 23 people are still missing.

The airstrike on the crowded Qaim street knocked out an eight-story building that had 16 apartments and damaged another one adjacent to it. The missiles destroyed the building and cut through the basement where the meeting of Hezbollah officials was being held, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene.

Shops in a nearby building were badly damaged.

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Hezbollah bombardments preceded ******** airstrike

Friday’s deadly strike came hours after Hezbollah launched one of its most intense bombardments of northern ******* in nearly a year of fighting, largely targeting ******** military sites. *******’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted most of the Katyusha rockets.

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The militant group said its latest wave of rocket salvos was a response to ******** strikes on southern Lebanon. However, it came days after mass explosions of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies ******* at least 37 people — including two children. Some 2,900 others were wounded in the ******** which has been widely attributed to *******.

The Lebanese health minister said Saturday hospitals across the country were filled with the wounded.

******* has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the *******, which marked a major escalation in the past 11 months of simmering conflict along the *******-Lebanon border.

******* airstrikes, Hezbollah rocket attacks continue

On Saturday, ******* launched an intense wave of airstrikes on southern Lebanon, according to an Associated Press journalist in the area. The ******** military said its air force was attacking Hezbollah targets, without providing further details. The militant group responded by ******* a large number of rockets, local media reported.

It ******** unclear if there were any casualties in the latest strikes.

Earlier this week, *******’s security cabinet said stopping Hezbollah’s attacks in the country’s north to allow residents to return to their homes is now an official war goal, as it considers a wider military operation in Lebanon that could spark an all-out conflict. ******* has since sent a powerful fighting force to the northern border.

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Hezbollah has maintained that it will halt its strikes only when a cease-***** is reached in Gaza.

The ****-for-tat strikes have forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes in both southern Lebanon and northern *******.

******* and Hezbollah have traded ***** regularly since ******’ Oct. 7 ******** on southern ******* ignited the ******** military’s devastating offensive in Gaza. But previous cross-border attacks have largely struck areas in northern ******* that had been evacuated and less-populated parts of southern Lebanon.

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