An IDF airstrike killed Ibrahim Aqil while he met with other senior commanders in an underground bunker outside Beirut.
In yet another devastating strike on Hezbollah, Israeli officials said an Israeli airstrike on Sept. 20 killed its operations commander and a dozen other top leaders as they met in a bunker beneath a residential building outside Beirut, Lebanon.
Hezbollah had responded overnight, as it promised it would, to this week’s deadly exploding pager and radio attacks, launching nearly 150 rockets at Israel.
Israeli officials have not directly commented on the attacks and have not said whether Israel’s military was involved.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed Ibrahim Aqil was killed in the Sept. 20 airstrike.
Aqil was Hezbollah’s operations commander, head of its elite Radwan Forces, in line to become second-in-command to leader Hassan Nasrallah, and long wanted by the United States for his directing the 1983 U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks bombings in Beirut.
About 10 senior operations and Radwan commanders were also killed in the bombing strike, the IDF said.
The IDF said Aqil was planning Hezbollah’s version of Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, in which northern Israeli communities would be infiltrated and their residents murdered.
Hezbollah Pager Explosions
Earlier in the week, Hezbollah pagers, and in a second wave handheld radios, exploded on their users’ belts or in their hands, killing nine and wounding more than 2,800.
Hezbollah’s rocket attack was one of its largest ever. The IDF, which tends to minimize damage reports, said that some of the rockets were shot down while many others landed in open areas. Some of those set fires and few Israeli casualties were reported.
The IDF said about 120 rockets were fired at the Golan Heights, Safed, and Upper Galilee, and another 20 at the areas of Meron and Netua.
Israeli press reports, though, said around 50 houses in Israel’s northernmost community, Metula, were damaged by rockets in the overnight barrage. Over 300 houses, around half of all homes, have been damaged since Oct. 8, 2023. Many homes back up to the Lebanese border.
By Dan M. Berger
