Israel’s military says it attacked Hezbollah’s intelligence HQ in Beirut

Israel said its air force attacked Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut on Sunday as well as an underground workshop for the production of weapons.

In a statement, the Israeli military said its fighter jets killed three Hezbollah commanders, including Alhaj Abbas Salameh, a senior figure in the group’s southern command, Radja Abbas Awache, a communications expert, and Ahmad Ali Hussein, who it said was responsible for strategic weapons development.

It was not clear if the three were killed in the attack on the headquarters or in separate actions.

Hezbollah made no immediate comment.

Israel’s military said on Saturday it had destroyed tunnel shafts and underground infrastructure in southern Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander of the Bint Jbeil area on Friday.

Early on Sunday, two Israeli strikes targeted the Harat Hreik neighborhood in the southern suburbs of Beirut, hitting a residential building near Bahman Hospital, Lebanon’s state-run national news agency said.

Reuters witnesses saw smoke rising from Beirut’s suburbs on Sunday morning, but it was not clear if this was a result of the same strike.

Cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah erupted a year ago when the Iranian-backed group began launching rockets in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Since October 2023, more than 2,400 people have been killed, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, with more than 1.2 million people displaced, while 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights, according to Israeli authorities.