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28-09-2024
BEIRUT/ JERUSALEM: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of Friday’s strikes on Beirut, according to US media citing a US official.
Israel’s military said it carried out a “very accurate” strike on Hezbollah headquarters earlier but it has not stated whether Nasrallah was the target.
It has not been confirmed if he was in the buildings when they were struck.
Fresh strikes are under way in southern Beirut, media correspondents hearing at least seven loud explosions and seeing smoke filling the skyline.
Israel says it is conducting “targeted strikes” on buildings which it claims store weapons belonging to Hezbollah.
Lebanese officials say six people have been killed and 91 injured in an earlier air strike, with local officials saying that nearly 800 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon since Monday.
The strikes hit several buildings in Dahieh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in the south of the city. Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rr Adm Daniel Hagari said a “very accurate” strike had been carried out on Hezbollah headquarters.
At least six people have been killed in Friday’s strikes, Lebanon’s health ministry said, adding that at least 91 were injured.
Netanyahu vows to ‘defeat Hezbollah’: The attack came as shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “defeat Hezbollah” in a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York.
Netanyahu said Israel would continue attacking Hezbollah to achieve its goal of returning about 70,000 displaced Israelis to their homes in northern Israel. His office said he was cutting his trip to New York short and returning to Israel.
‘No warning’; the US had no advance warning of Israel’s attack on Dahieh, the Pentagon said. Meanwhile, Joe Biden ordered the Pentagon to “asses and adjust” US forces in the Middle East as necessary, according to the White House.
Biden also ordered US embassies in the region to “take all protective measures as appropriate”.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon’s militant Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement, is one of the best known and most influential figures in the Middle East.
Nasrallah who was reportedly the target of Friday’s air strike on Beirut has not been seen in public for years because of fears of being assassinated by Israel.
A shadowy figure with close personal links to Iran, he played a key role in turning Hezbollah into the political and military force it is today and remains revered by the group’s supporters.
Earlier Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Rr Adm Daniel Hagari said the military carried out a “very accurate” strike on Hezbollah headquarters.
He added the IDF was checking to see what the results of the strike were, but he did not mention Nasrallah and the Israeli military has not confirmed he was the target.
There has also been no confirmation that Nasrallah was in the buildings that were hit. Hezbollah has just released a statement, where it denies that any weapons or arms depots are located in buildings hit in an Israeli strike in Beirut.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has accused the US of “complicity” in Israeli strikes in Gaza and Lebanon.
“One cannot disregard the US complicity in the crime,” Araghchi told the UN Security Council. It comes as Israel says it’s carrying out strikes on buildings in Beirut which it claims store weapons belonging to Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran.
US President Joe Biden earlier confirmed that “the United States had no knowledge of or participation in the (Israeli) action” in Lebanon today, which was reiterated by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. (Int’l News Desk)
