Lebanon: Israel’s military says it has killed senior Hezbollah militant Haytham Tabtabai in its strike in Beirut on Sunday (Monday AEDT).
The military in a statement described Tabtabai as the Iran-backed militant group’s chief of staff. Hezbollah did not immediately comment. Tabtabai had led Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Unit.
Security officers gather near destroyed vehicles at the site where an Israeli strike hit at an apartment building in Dahiyeh on Sunday.Credit: AP
In 2016, the United States designated Tabtabai as a terrorist, calling him a military leader who led Hezbollah’s special forces in Syria and Yemen, and it offered up to $US5 million ($7.7m) for information about him.
The strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs killed five people and wounded 25 others, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.
Hezbollah said the strike, launched almost exactly a year after a ceasefire ended that Israel-Hezbollah war, threatened an escalation of attacks – just days before Pope Leo XIV is scheduled to visit Lebanon on his first foreign trip.
Civil Defence workers inspect site of the attack.Credit: AP
“We will continue to act forcefully to prevent any threat to the residents of the north and the state of Israel,” Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. Government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian did not say whether Israel informed the US before the strike, saying only that “Israel makes decisions independently.”
Israel did not issue an evacuation warning before the strike. Bedrosian said the Hezbollah chief of staff “led the strengthening and arming of the terrorist organisation.”
Mahmoud Qamati, deputy chair of Hezbollah’s political council, told journalists that a high-ranking militant may have been killed but did not give details.
