BEIRUT (Reuters) – An Israeli strike on a building in central Beirut killed Hezbollah’s media relations chief Mohammad Afif on Sunday, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters, although there was no immediate confirmation from the group. backed by Iran.
Israel has rarely attacked high-ranking Hezbollah personnel who do not have clear military roles, and its airstrikes have mainly targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the group has its largest presence.
A second separate attack later on Sunday hit Mar Elias Street, another central area that is rarely targeted by Israeli bombs, and targeted a vehicle, Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV reported. The Lebanese Health Ministry said the attack killed at least two people.
The Israeli military declined to comment in response to questions from Reuters about the attack that killed Afif. An Israeli military spokesman’s account on the social media platform X, which often posts evacuation orders for areas about to be bombed, showed no such warning before that attack.
Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire for more than a year, since the group began launching rockets at Israeli military targets on October 8, 2023. That was a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities. say.
In late September, Israel expanded its military campaign in Lebanon, heavily bombing the south, east and southern suburbs of Beirut along with ground raids along the border.
Israel’s campaign in Lebanon killed 3,841 people and injured almost 15,000 more in the last year, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said on Sunday, giving a balance that did not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Hezbollah rockets fired across the border have killed dozens of Israelis, including soldiers and civilians, Israel says.
A separate attack on the Gaza Strip in Israel’s war against Hamas has killed more than 43,000 people, most of them civilians, according to Palestinian health officials.
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In addition to targeting Hezbollah, the escalation has killed several Lebanese army soldiers, including two who died on Sunday when Israel attacked an army post in the southern town of Al-Mari, the Lebanese army said in X.
Two other soldiers were wounded, he added.
The attack in Beirut against the Hezbollah official affected the Ras al-Nabaa neighborhood, where many people displaced from the southern suburbs by Israeli bombings had sought refuge.
Lebanese security sources said a building housing the Baath Party’s offices had been attacked, and the party’s head in Lebanon, Ali Hijazi, told Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed that Afif had been in the building.
The Syrian Social Nationalist Party, another political party linked to Hezbollah, said in a statement that Afif had been killed, but did not give details of how or where. The Lebanese Health Ministry said the attack had killed one person and wounded three.
Ambulances were heard arriving at the scene and guns were fired to prevent the crowd from approaching.
The broadcaster also later said Afif had been killed.
It showed images of a building whose upper floors had collapsed onto the first floor, with civil defense workers at the scene.
Afif was a long-time media adviser to Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut on September 27.
He ran Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television station for several years before taking over the group’s media office.
Afif organized several press conferences for journalists amid the rubble in Beirut’s southern suburbs. In his most recent comments to reporters on Nov. 11, he said that Israeli troops had been unable to control any territory in Lebanon and that Hezbollah had enough weapons and supplies to fight a long war.