Three killed in Israeli strike on Beirut suburb targeting ‘Hezbollah militant’

At least three people were killed and seven wounded in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs early on Tuesday, the Lebanese health ministry said, further testing a shaky four-month ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-aligned group.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it attacked a Hezbollah militant “who had recently directed Hamas operatives and assisted them.”

There was no immediate statement from Hezbollah on the identity of the target.

Israel resumed a ground and air campaign in the Gaza enclave last month, demanding that Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, lay down its arms.

The strike in Beirut appeared to have damaged the upper three floors of a building in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, a Hezbollah stronghold known as the Dahiyeh, a reporter at the scene said, with the balconies of those floors blown out. The glass on the floors below was intact, indicating a target strike. Ambulances were at the scene to recover casualties.

There was no evacuation warning issued for the area ahead of the strike, and families fled in the aftermath to other parts of Beirut, according to witnesses.

The November truce halted the year-long conflict and mandated that southern Lebanon be free of Hezbollah fighters and weapons, that Lebanese troops deploy to the area and that Israeli ground troops withdraw from the zone. But each side accuses the other of not entirely living up to those terms.

The US-brokered ceasefire has looked increasingly flimsy lately. Israel delayed a promised troop withdrawal in January and said in March that it had intercepted rockets fired from Lebanon, which led it to bombard targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs and southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah has denied any involvement in the rocket firings.

The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest attack.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities. The campaign began on Oct. 7, 2023 when Hamas militants stormed across the border, and Israel said the militants killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took some 250 people into captivity in Gaza.