Israel has continued its attacks on Lebanon, claiming to have hit dozens of Hizbullah targets and to have killed another Hizbullah figure, a day after the Lebanese militant group confirmed leader Hassan Nasrallah died in an Israeli strike on Beirut.
The Israeli military said in a post on X that it killed a top Hizbullah leader, Nabil Kaouk, one of the few remaining senior leaders of the organisation. Kaouk was the deputy head of Hizbullah’s central council.
He was reportedly one of those being considered to succeed Nasrallah, who was killed by an Israeli air strike in Beirut on Friday, as the head of Hizbullah.
Fighting between Hizbullah and Israel continued through the night and early morning, with Israeli warplanes carrying out air strikes across south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley.
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Lebanon’s state news agency reported an Israeli air strike on a house in the town of Ain, in the Bekaa valley, eastern Lebanon, killed 11 people earlier on Sunday.
Hizbullah launched a rocket salvo using the group’s medium range Fadi-1 rockets, according to a statement on Sunday morning. It was not immediately clear if Hizbullah’s attacks resulted in any Israeli casualties.
Among those killed by Israel’s overnight airstrikes were four paramedics while they were working in their medical centre in Tair Dirba, south Lebanon, Lebanon’s national news agency reported on Sunday.
The day before, Israeli strikes killed 33 people and injured 195, the country’s health ministry reported.
Israel has killed hundreds of people, including children, in its attacks on Lebanon over the past week, which included the massive strike on a densely populated area of south Beirut that is believed to have killed Nasrallah on Friday and levelled several entire apartment blocks.
Iran vowed to avenge his death on Saturday, while US president Joe Biden said his killing provided a “measure of justice for his many victims”. Mr Biden did not mention the many civilians killed by Israel, including children, in this week’s attacks.
Lebanon is to hold three days of official mourning for Nasrallah from Monday, according to the prime minister’s office. Hizbullah has yet to announce a date for his funeral.
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Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said targeting Nasrallah was “an essential condition to achieving the goals we set”.
In his first public remarks since the killing, Mr Netanyahu said: “He wasn’t another terrorist. He was the terrorist.”
He said Mr Nasrallah’s killing would help bring displaced Israelis back to their homes in the north and would pressure Hamas to free Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
But with the threat of retaliation high, Mr Netanyahu warned the coming days would bring “significant challenges” and warned Iran against trying to strike.
“There is no place in Iran or in the Middle East that Israel’s long arm cannot reach. And today you know how much that is true,” he said.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 6,000 wounded as a result of Israeli attacks in the past two weeks, the health ministry said, and about one million Lebanese people have been displaced by the strikes, including hundreds of thousands since Friday, Nasser Yassin, the minister co-ordinating the government’s crisis response, has told Reuters. – Guardian