An Israeli airstrike in central Beirut killed a senior Hezbollah spokesman on Sunday, an official from the militant group said. Earlier, Israeli strikes killed at least 12 people in the Gaza Strip, officials said, where Israel has been at war with the Palestinian Authority's Hamas for more than a year.
The latest in a series of targeted assassinations of senior Hezbollah officials came as Lebanese officials were considering a US-led ceasefire proposal. Israel also bombed several buildings in areas south of Beirut, where Hezbollah has a long presence, after warning people to evacuate.
Mohammed Afif, Hezbollah's head of media relations, was killed in a strike at the Arab Baath party's office in central Beirut, according to a Hezbollah official who was not authorized to brief reporters and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Afif was particularly visible after the outbreak of war between Israel and Hezbollah in September and the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was also attacked by Israeli airstrikes. Last month, Afif held a press conference in Beirut before the Israeli strikes.
Rare strike in central Beirut
An Associated Press photographer at the scene of Sunday's strike saw four dead bodies and four wounded people, but there was no official word on the numbers. People could be seen fleeing from the neighborhood. There was no comment from the Israeli military.
“I was sleeping and woke up to the sound of the strike, people crying, cars and guns,” said Suheil Halabi who witnessed the strike. It's the first time I've seen it so close.”
The last Israeli strike in central Beirut was on October 10, when 22 people were killed in strikes in two areas.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones at Israel the day after Hamas attacked on October 7, 2023 and the war in Gaza began. Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes in Lebanon and the conflict gradually escalated, starting a war in September. Israeli forces invaded Lebanon on October 1.
Hezbollah continued to fire dozens of projectiles into Israel each day and expanded its range into the central part of the country. A rocket blast in the northern city of Haifa on Saturday destroyed a synagogue and injured two people.
More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the country's Ministry of Health, and more than 1.2 million have been driven from their homes. It is not known how many of the dead are Hezbollah fighters.
On the Israeli side, Hezbollah airstrikes have killed at least 76 people, including 31 soldiers, and caused about 60,000 people to flee from communities in the north.
Night strikes in central Gaza killed 12
Israeli strikes killed six people in Nuseirat and four others in Bureij, two refugee camps built in central Gaza since the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation.
Two more people died in the strike on Gaza's main north-south road, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city center of Deir al-Balah, which received all 12 bodies.
The war between Israel and Hamas began after the Palestinian army invaded Israel on October 7 last year, killing about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and abducting about 250 people. About 100 hostages remain inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza says that about 43,800 Palestinians have been killed in this war. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters but said women and children made up more than half of the dead.
About 90 percent of Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced, and large areas of the area have been decimated by Israeli bombing and occupation.
The Israeli police arrested 3 people after the shooting at Netanyahu's house
Meanwhile, the Israeli police arrested three suspects after a fire was set on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in the coastal city of Caesarea.
Netanyahu and his family were not at the residence when the two fires were set off overnight, and no one was injured, authorities said. A helicopter launched by Hezbollah attacked the area last month, in the absence of Netanyahu and his family.
Police did not provide details on the suspected arsonists, but officials pointed to Netanyahu's domestic political critics. Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the incident and warned of “an increase in communal violence.”
Netanyahu has faced countless protests for months. Critics blame him for the security and intelligence failures that allowed the October 7 attack to take place and for not reaching an agreement with Hamas to release dozens of hostages still being held inside Gaza. Israelis gathered again in the city of Tel Aviv on Saturday night to demand a truce for repatriation.
The Israeli minister is looking to revive the judicial reform
Israel's Justice Minister Yariv Levin participated in an attack on Netanyahu's home to demand the renewal of his plans to reform Israel's judiciary, which had sparked many protests before the war.
“The time has come to fully support the restoration of the justice system and law enforcement systems, and put an end to unrest, violence, denial and attempts to harm the prime minister,” he said in a statement.
Supporters said the judicial reform aims to strengthen democracy by removing the authority of unelected judges and giving more power to elected officials. Opponents see the reshuffle as a power grab for Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption and attacking a watchdog.
Many Israelis believe that the bitter internal divisions created by attempts at reform weakened the country and its army before the Hamas onslaught.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said on the X website that he “strongly condemns” the firebombing of Netanyahu's house while blasting Levin's proposal.
“Levin should go home with all this indifferent government,” Lapid wrote. “We will not allow him to make Israel a country without democracy.”
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