Israel steps up offensive against Hezbollah, launching strike on Beirut

Without easing the pressure on Gaza, Israel is stepping up its offensive against Hezbollah. “In the new phase of the war, there are significant opportunities, but also significant risks,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday. This “new phase” has taken the form of fierce clashes on the border of Israel and Lebanon, the likes of which have not been seen in almost a year.

On Friday, after thousands of people — both militants and civilians — were still recovering from the back-to-back exploding device attacks, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched a “targeted strike” on Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, specifically in the Dahieh neighborhood, a stronghold of the Shiite militia. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, the strike has so far caused at least eight dead and 59 wounded.

The attack came after Israel’s two-hour-long wave of strikes against Hezbollah strongholds on Thursday. In a statement, the IDF claimed to have destroyed hundreds of Hezbollah rocket launchers. It also called on the inhabitants of several towns in the north of Israel, including some dozens of miles from the border, to remain close to shelters.

According to several Israeli media, the target of Friday’s attack in Beirut was Ibrahim Aqil, head of Hezbollah’s special units. A source close to the Shiite militia told AFP that the Hezbollah leader had died in the airstrike. “The Israeli airstrike killed Radwan Force commander Ibrahim Aqil, its armed force’s second-in-command after Fuad Shukr,” said the source.

Shukr was killed by Israeli forces in Dahieh at the end of July, the last time this Beirut neighborhood was attacked. The United States had offered a $7 million award in exchange for information on Aquil, who it considered to be one of the people responsible for the 1983 U.S. embassy bombing in Beirut, which killed 63 people.

In Dahieh, accesses to the neighborhood, near the Al Qaem mosque, were closed off in all directions. The exceptional nature of Friday’s attack — coupled with the tension sparked by the mass infiltration of Hezbollah — has led youths in the militant to stop anyone from entering, even people who say they are nurses or journalists. Photographers are only allowed to shoot in the opposite direction of the street leading to the site.

Just a few hours earlier, Hezbollah had responded to Israel’s Thursday strike by firing 140 rockets at northern Israel — one of the biggest strikes since clashes began in October 2023. Hezbollah claims that it had targeted military installations. The IDF identified 120 rockets, “some” of which were intercepted, while others caused fires. No deaths have so far been reported in Hezbollah’s attacks.

Rockets fired at Israel

After midday, exchanges of rockets were visible over the sky around Kiryat Shmona, an Israeli town of 20,000 inhabitants that is frequently bombed by Hezbollah. This town is less than two miles from the border, and was evacuated at the beginning of the conflict. Columns of smoke were seen rising over the mountains that separate the two countries.

Israel’s anti-missile shield, known as the Iron Dome, fires rockets that draw whimsical curves in the half-clouded sky as they intercept the rockets coming from the Lebanon. Avi, a carefree twenty-something, walks along one of the roads in Kiryat Shmona, and does not enter any of the shelters scattered in front of the houses. Nor is he in the mood for conversation. Bus number 12 passes by minutes later without a single passenger inside.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was scheduled to travel to the United States on Monday to attend the U.N. General Assembly, where he will speak on Friday, has postponed the trip to Tuesday, according to Israeli media. Meanwhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has declared that the latest bombing of Beirut shows that Israel “has no regard for any humanitarian, legal or moral considerations.” White House national security spokesman John Kirby has asked U.S. citizens to refrain from traveling to Lebanon, and told reporters that he was not aware if Israel had informed the U.S. of its plans for Friday’s strike on the Lebanese capital.

Hezbollah’s show of force comes just as it was believed to be still recovering from the back-to-back attack, blamed on the Mossad, Israel’s foreign secret services. Nearly 40 people died and 3,000 were wounded in Lebanon when pagers and walkie-talkies simultaneously exploded on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. “There is no doubt that we have been subjected to a major security and military blow that is unprecedented in the history of the resistance and unprecedented in the history of Lebanon,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah admitted on Thursday in a dejected speech. Nasrallah stressed, however, that it had not “shaken” the organization: “I want to reassure those who ask us: we are very prepared. What has happened will not affect our power and preparation. It will only increase our determination.”

Hezbollah ordered and distributed the electronic devices: more than 5,000 of them. These devices were not only given to its armed wing, but also to its members in political, health and educational fields. It is assumed that hundreds of militants are out of combat due to injuries (largely wounds to hands and eyes) just as the Benjamin Netanyahu government has suggested an imminent ground invasion of southern Lebanon, from where some 100,000 people have already fled.

Israel’s objective is to create a “security strip” to try to stop Hezbollah launching of rockets against the north of the country, from where more than 60,000 civilians have been evacuated. Nasrallah reiterated his conditions on Wednesday: he will not cease his attacks until Israel stops bombing Gaza, a possibility that has rarely seemed more distant in recent months.

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