Beirut, Lebanon—Israel said Sunday it killed another senior Hezbollah official in an air strike on the Lebanese capital after dealing the Iran-backed group a seismic blow by assassinating its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Israel announced the killing of Nabil Qaouq, a member of Hezbollah’s central council in a strike Saturday, adding that its air force continued to hit “dozens” more targets around Lebanon on Sunday.
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Israeli strikes have in recent months decimated Hezbollah’s senior command structure, with Nasrallah’s right-hand man Fuad Shukr, head of the elite Radwan Force Ibrahim Aqil and others among the dead.
The past week’s waves of strikes on Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon have also plunged the tiny Mediterranean country and the wider region into fear of even more violence to come.
Hezbollah launched low-intensity cross-border strikes on Israeli troops after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, sparking the war in the Gaza Strip.
Nearly a year later, Israel announced a shift in its focus to battling Hezbollah on its northern front.
Hezbollah confirmed Nasrallah’s killing in a massive strike on Friday on the group’s main bastion in south Beirut.
“We all started crying,” Maha Karit told Agence France Presse (AFP) in Beirut after Nasrallah’s death.
With Lebanon already mired in political and economic crisis, the escalation has pushed it to the brink, as the bombardment has killed over 700 people in a week, according to health ministry figures.
The Israeli military said on Sunday its air force had struck “dozens of Hezbollah terror targets” after carrying out “hundreds” of strikes on Friday and Saturday.
It then announced that Qaouq was “struck and eliminated” in a strike on south Beirut on Saturday.
Hezbollah has yet to officially announce Qaouq’s death but a source close to the group said he had been killed.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported a string of raids in and around the city of Baalbek in the east.
At least six people were killed in a strike on a house in the northeastern Hermel region, the agency reported, while an emergency response group affiliated with Hezbollah ally the Amal movement said five of its rescuers were killed in the south.
Hezbollah said its fighters launched “a volley of Fadi-1” rockets at an Israeli base in the Golan Heights early Sunday. The Israeli military reported “approximately eight” launches from Lebanon that fell in unpopulated areas near the Israeli-annexed territory.
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