The principle spokesman for Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on central Beirut on Sunday, an official with the militant group stated.
The Hezbollah official, who spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to temporary the media, advised the Related Press that Mohammed Afif was killed in a strike on the Arab socialist Baath get together’s workplace.
FADEL ITANI/AFP through Getty Photographs
Afif, who was the pinnacle of media relations for Hezbollah, has been particularly seen after Israel’s navy escalation in September and following the assassination of longtime Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Final month, Afif had rapidly wrapped up a press convention in Beirut forward of Israeli strikes.
Israeli warplanes pounded the southern suburbs of Beirut on Sunday after the navy warned folks to evacuate from a number of buildings.
The Hezbollah militant group has a robust presence within the space, often called the Dahiyeh, and the strikes got here as Lebanese officers are contemplating a U.S.-brokered cease-fire proposal.
An Related Press photographer on the scene of Sunday’s strike noticed 4 our bodies and 4 wounded folks, however there was no official phrase on the toll. Folks could possibly be seen fleeing the neighborhood. There was no remark from the Israeli navy.
“I used to be asleep and awoke from the sound of the strike, and other people screaming, and automobiles and gunfire,” stated Suheil Halabi, who witnessed the strike. “I used to be startled, actually. That is the primary time I expertise it so shut.”
Bilal Hussein / AP
The final Israeli strike in central Beirut was on Oct. 10, when 22 folks had been killed in strikes on two places.
Hezbollah started firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 assault that ignited the warfare in Gaza. Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes in Lebanon and the battle steadily escalated, erupting into all-out warfare in September. Israeli forces invaded Lebanon on Oct. 1.
In a single day strikes in central Gaza kill 12
Israeli strikes hit two built-up refugee camps in central Gaza relationship again to the 1948 warfare surrounding Israel’s creation, killing six folks in Nuseirat and one other 4 in Bureij.
One other two folks had been killed in a strike on Gaza’s major north-south freeway, in response to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital within the central metropolis of Deir al-Balah, which obtained all 12 our bodies.
The warfare between Israel and Hamas started after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7. final 12 months, killing about 1,200 folks — principally civilians — and abducting round 250 others. Round 100 hostages are nonetheless inside Gaza, a couple of third of them believed to be lifeless.
Ali Jadallah/Anadolu through Getty Photographs
The Well being Ministry in Gaza says round 43,800 Palestinians have been killed within the warfare. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants however has stated girls and kids make up greater than half the fatalities.
Additionally on Sunday, Israeli police stated they arrested three suspects after flares had been fired at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal residence within the coastal metropolis of Caesarea.
Netanyahu and his household weren’t on the residence when two flares had been fired at it in a single day, and there have been no accidents, authorities stated. A drone launched by Hezbollah struck the residence final month, additionally when Netanyahu and his household had been away.
The police didn’t present particulars concerning the suspects behind the flares, however officers pointed to home political critics of Netanyahu. Israel’s largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the incident and warned towards “an escalation of the violence within the public sphere.”