The strike in the Lebanese capital comes in retaliation for Hezbollah’s rocket attack on a soccer field that killed 12 children and teens.
Israel’s military struck the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Tuesday, July 30, saying it was targeting the Hezbollah commander.
Hezbollah has been blamed for a soccer field rocket attack that killed 12 Israeli children and teens.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a post on Telegram that it carried out “a targeted strike in Beirut, on the commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians.”
The strike hit Haret Hreik in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.
Both White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre and State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel declined to comment in briefings immediately after the strike. Both said a wider war is not inevitable, and urged continuation of efforts to reach a diplomatic solution.
“Israel has every right to defend itself, certainly for the things like malign, Iran-backed proxies like Hezbollah,” Mr. Patel said at a press briefing. “It certainly faces threats like no other country does in that region of the world.
“We of course want to make sure that through our diplomacy conditions can be created in which civilians can return home.”
Israel and Hezbollah have conducted an accelerated battle of rockets and air strikes across the border since the soccer field strike on July 27.
It was not immediately clear if any Hezbollah official was hit.
The airstrike damaged several buildings, collapsing half of an apartment building next to a hospital. The hospital sustained minor damage.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that the strike was carried out with a drone that launched three rockets.
The Biden administration has sought to contain Israel’s expected retaliation to avoid escalating to a wider war and specifically requested it not to strike Beirut or the Hezbollah strongholds outside it.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from a visit to the United States on Sunday and received authorization from his cabinet to decide on the manner and timing of retaliation. At a memorial for the victims, he promised a “severe” response.
By Dan M. Berger
