Israel has claimed responsibility for an airstrike on Beirut, Lebanon, allegedly targeting a Hezbollah commander who it claims organised an attack on the Golan Heights which killed 12 children.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had “carried out a targeted strike in Beirut, on the commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians.”
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant posted “Hezbollah crossed the red line” on social media minutes after the Israeli military claimed responsibility for the strike on Tuesday.
According to Lebanese state news agency NNA, the attack was carried out by a drone that fired three missiles.
A Hezbollah official said the strike hit Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik – near Hezbollah’s Shura Council.
The commander targetted in the attack has survived, according to a report by Reuters.
The attack comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised heavy retaliation against Hezbollah for the weekend rocket attack that killed 12 children in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.
Israel has blamed Hezbollah for the rocket strike that hit a football pitch where children played.
Hezbollah denied any role in the strike.
Netanyahu vowed further retaliation as he visited the football pitch where the strike landed on Monday.
“These children are our children, they are the children of all of us,” he said as officials laid a wreath.
“The state of Israel will not and cannot overlook this. Our response will come, and it will be severe,” he said, adding that the rocket was fired by Hezbollah.
Netanyahu’s visit was protested by nearly 300 friends and relatives of the victims, who accused him of exploiting the children’s deaths for political gain.
According to the IDF, Hezbollah fired an Iranian-made Falaq rocket with a 53-kilogram warhead.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed them in 1981.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded near daily fire since the war in Gaza started after Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7 killed some 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage.
Israel launched an offensive that has so far killed more than 39,000 people, according to local health authorities, displaced more than 80% of the territory’s people and triggered a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip.
Over the past few weeks, the exchange of fire along the Lebanon-Israel intensified with Israeli airstrikes and rocket and drone attacks by Hezbollah striking deeper and further away from the border.
Since early October, Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have killed more than 450 people, mostly Hezbollah members, but also around 90 civilians and non-combatants. On the Israeli side, 21 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed.
