Israel Kills Hezbollah Radwan Commander in Beirut Strike, Testing U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire

Israel carried out a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Wednesday that it said killed a senior Hezbollah commander of the Radwan force, marking the first attack on the capital’s southern suburbs since a U.S.-brokered ceasefire took effect last month.

“Israel has continued to pound southern Lebanon, killing one person and injuring several others, according to Lebanese state-run media, a day after it targeted a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force in the southern suburbs of Beirut”

Al Jazeera

The Israeli military said the strike hit an apartment building in Dahiyeh, a densely populated residential and commercial area where Hezbollah holds sway, and it targeted the commander of Hezbollah’s Radwan force, the group’s elite commando unit.

Al Jazeera

The attack came as Israel and Hezbollah continued to exchange daily attacks in southern Lebanon despite the ceasefire, and it risked destabilizing an “already tenuous truce,” according to GV Wire’s account of the Israeli military’s framing.

GV Wire also reported that Beirut and its southern suburbs had been spared Israeli attacks since April 8, when Israel unleashed a wave of strikes across the country including on the Lebanese capital that killed more than 350 people, according to Lebanese authorities.

In parallel, Al Jazeera reported that Israel continued to pound southern Lebanon after the Beirut targeting, with a house hit in Ain Baal in the Tyre District and additional air strikes in Dibbin in the Marjayoun District and Nabatieh, as Israel issued new evacuation orders for Deir al-Zahrani, Bafroa and Habush.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz announced the strike in a joint statement, and Netanyahu later said, “No terrorist has immunity – Israel’s long hand will catch every enemy and murderer,” as Al Jazeera described Israel’s message alongside its evacuation orders.

GV Wire reported that Netanyahu and Katz said in their joint statement, “This is how we act, and this is how we will continue to act,” while Hezbollah had not yet commented on the strike.

BBC

Al Jazeera said Hezbollah had not yet responded to the Israeli claim, and it described an “unspoken agreement” cited by Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto that Beirut would not be targeted during the ceasefire while Israel reserved the right to target other places it said posed a threat to national security.

Kurdistan24, citing an AFP source, described the commander as Malek Ballout, the operations commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan force, and said the Lebanese state-run National News Agency reported Israeli warplanes struck the Ghobeiri area in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Kurdistan24 also reported that Israeli strikes killed at least 11 people in the south and east of the country on Wednesday, and that in Saksakiyeh four people were killed and 33 wounded, including six children and four women, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

The Beirut strike landed as envoys from Israel and Lebanon were scheduled to hold another round of U.S.-brokered talks in Washington next Thursday and Friday, according to the State Department as described by GV Wire, with the Trump administration trying to turn the ceasefire into a more durable arrangement.

“Israel strikes Beirut for first time since Hezbollah ceasefire Israel has attacked Beirut for the first time since it agreed to a ceasefire in the war with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, putting further pressure on a deal that has failed to stop the conflict”

BBC

GV Wire reported that the timing was especially delicate because the strike came amid signs that diplomacy between the United States and Iran could be gaining momentum, with Tehran reviewing an American proposal to end the war, and it said renewed escalation in Lebanon could complicate that effort given Iran’s demands for an end to Israeli strikes there.

Al Jazeera said the attack on the capital was the first since the truce went into force on April 17 and that Israel and Hezbollah continued to trade accusations of violating the ceasefire agreement, while it also reported that Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed more than 2,700 people since March 2.

Kurdistan24 added that since March 2, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 2,700 people and displaced over one million others, particularly in southern and eastern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, and it described the conflict’s impact on healthcare as the World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it had verified 152 attacks on healthcare facilities resulting in 103 deaths and 241 injuries.

Al Jazeera further reported that the terms of the ceasefire allow Israel to act against “planned, imminent or ongoing attacks” by Hezbollah, while Israel’s army chief Eyal Zamir said Israeli troops near the “yellow line” would “seize every opportunity to deepen the dismantling of Hezbollah and continue weakening it,” as the sources framed what comes next.