Beirut, Lebanon (DT/AP) — Hezbollah on Tuesday confirmed the death of one of its top commanders, Ibrahim Kobeisi, who was killed in an Israeli strike in a southern Beirut suburb.
The strike hit three floors of a six-story building. It was Israel’s third strike over Beirut in less than a week.
Kobeissi is the first member of the militant group pronounced dead since Israel and Hezbollah entered a more intense phase of the ongoing conflict.
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Israel said Kobeisi was a top Hezbollah commander with the group’s rocket and missile unit. Israeli military officials said Kobeisi was responsible for launches towards Israel and planned a 2000 attack in which three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and killed.
It was the latest in a string of assassinations and setbacks for Hezbollah, the strongest political and military actor in Lebanon and widely considered the top paramilitary force in the Arab world.
The Israeli military said it killed a top Hezbollah commander Tuesday as part of a two-day aerial barrage that has left more than 560 people dead and prompted thousands in southern Lebanon to seek refuge from the widening conflict.
With the two sides on the brink of all-out war, Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets into Israel, targeting an explosives factory and sending families into bomb shelters.
Families that fled southern Lebanon flocked to Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, sleeping in schools turned into shelters, as well as in cars, parks and along the beach. Some sought to leave the country, causing a traffic jam at the border with Syria.
Issa Baydoun fled the village of Shihine when it was bombed and drove to Beirut with his extended family. They slept in vehicles on the side of the road because the shelters were full.
“We struggled a lot on the road just to get here,” said Baydoun, who rejected Israel’s contention that it hit only military targets. “We evacuated our homes because Israel is targeting civilians and attacking them.”
The Israeli military says it has no immediate plans for a ground invasion but is prepared for one. It has moved thousands of troops who had been serving in Gaza to the northern border. It says Hezbollah has some 150,000 rockets and missiles, including some capable of striking anywhere in Israel, and that the group has fired some 9,000 rockets and drones since last October.
Israel said its warplanes struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets Monday, destroying cruise missiles, long- and short-range rockets and attack drones, including weapons concealed in private homes.
Monday’s escalation came after a particularly heavy exchange of fire Sunday, when Hezbollah launched around 150 rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel.
Last week, thousands of communications devices used mainly by Hezbollah members exploded in different parts of Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000, many of them civilians. Lebanon blamed Israel, but Israel did not confirm or deny responsibility.