20 September 2024 Beirut attack | |
---|---|
Part of the September 2024 Lebanon strikes | |
Location | Haret Hreik, Dahieh, Lebanon |
Date | 20 September 2024 |
Target | Redwan Force command committee |
Deaths | 55 [1] |
Injured | 68+ |
Perpetrator | Israel |
On 20 September 2024, Israel launched an air attack that leveled an apartment building in the Dahieh suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. [2] The attack killed at least 45 people, including 16 Hezbollah militants, including commanders Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Wehbe. The other victims were civilians, including at least three children and seven women. At least 68 others were injured. [3] [4] [5]
Israel said the strike targeted commanders of Hezbollah's elite Redwan Force command committee which was holding a meeting within the apartment building. [6] [7] Two months earlier, Israel had assassinated another commander, Fuad Shukr, in the ongoing Israel–Hezbollah conflict.
Hezbollah and Israel have been involved in an ongoing cross-border military exchanges that has displaced entire communities in Israel and Lebanon since the start of the Israel–Hamas war in late 2023. [8] [9]
Earlier on 17 September 2024, just a few hours before the explosions, the Security Cabinet of Israel established a new war objective: the safe return of displaced residents to the north. [10] [11] Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Bet, announced it had thwarted a Hezbollah plot to assassinate a former senior defense official using an explosive device. [12] [13] On the same day and the following one, thousands of handheld pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah exploded in simultaneous attacks across Lebanon and Syria. [14] [15] [16] According to The New York Times , Israeli intelligence services had manufactured the devices. [17] The incident was described by Hezbollah's officials as the organization's biggest security breach since the start of the conflict. [18]
Ibrahim Aqil was a Lebanese militant and senior official in Hezbollah. [19] He was a member of the Jihad Council, which oversees the military and security operations of the organization. Aqil served as the head of operations and was considered by some as the de facto Chief of Staff of Hezbollah. [20] [21] He was also believed to be the head of the Redwan Force, an elite Hezbollah branch. [19] [22]
In the 1980s, he was a key figure in the Islamic Jihad Organization, a terrorist cell operated by Hezbollah and responsible for the 1983 US embassy bombing in Beirut, killing 63 people, and the attacks on the multinational force bases in Beirut that resulted in the deaths of 305 people. [23] During the 1980s, Aqil was responsible for the kidnapping of American and German hostages. [24]
On 10 September 2019, the U.S. Department of State designated him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. [20] On 18 April 2023, the Rewards for Justice program offered a reward of up to $7 million for information about him. [20] He was reportedly involved in planning a Hezbollah operation in northern Israel, which was believed to be similar to the October 7 Hamas-led attacks. [25]
On 20 September 2024, at around 15:45 EEST, an air-strike targeted a building on Jamous Street in the neighborhood of al-Qaem in the southern suburbs of Beirut, an area known as a Hezbollah stronghold. Initial reports suggested Naim Qassem, Hezbollah's second in command, was one of those who was targeted. [26] The Lebanese National News Agency said that the air-strike was carried out in two sorties by an F-35 fighter jet. [27]
At least 45 people [28] including three children and seven women were killed, while 68 others were injured. [3] [4] [27] Footage of the targeted site shows extensive damage to the building, with the street littered with debris and destroyed vehicles. It was also reported that the IDF confirmed a "targeted strike"; no changes in Home Front Command defensive guidelines were announced. [29] The strike leveled the apartment building, [2] cutting through the eight storeys and 16 apartments down to its basement. [30] Another building also collapsed in the attack. [27] Rescue workers immediately started digging through the rubble as 20 people remain missing from the attack. [31]
The IDF said that at least 10 Hezbollah commanders were killed in the airstrike in Beirut alongside Ibrahim Aqil, [32] who was holding a meeting at the basement of the building at the time of the strike. [30] Hezbollah later confirmed the deaths of 15 of its members in the airstrike, including Aqil and Ahmed Wehbe. [33]
The assassinations of Aqil and Wehbe marked the second and third Hezbollah commanders killed by Israel after Fuad Shukr in two months. [34]
As of 11 December 2024 [update] , five people remain missing. [35]
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the attack "proves again that the Israeli enemy does not value any human, legal or moral considerations". [27]
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said he was "not aware of any prior notification regarding Israeli strikes on Beirut". [36] US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the assassination served justice to Aqil, stating: "any time a terrorist who has murdered Americans is brought to justice, we believe that that is a good outcome." [37]
Hamas denounced the attack, calling it a "crime" and saying that "Israel would pay the price" for the killings. [38]
Hezbollah confirmed Aqil's death. In a statement, the group labelled him "a great jihadist leader", adding that he had "joined the procession of his brothers, the great martyr leaders, after a blessed life full of jihad, work, wounds, sacrifices, dangers, challenges, achievements, and victories." [2] Hezbollah also named Ali Reda Abbas as the new leader of the Redwan Force. [39]
The January 2015 Mazraat Amal incident was an airstrike against a two-car convoy that killed six Hezbollah fighters, including two prominent commanders, and a general of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, at al-Amal Farms in the Quneitra District of Syria, in the Eastern Golan Heights, on 18 January 2015, during the Syrian Civil War. The attack was largely attributed to Israel, which did not officially confirm that it carried it out. Hezbollah and IRGC held Israel responsible and threatened to retaliate. On 19 January 2015, Al-Nusra Front member Abu Azzam al-Idlibi claimed that Jihad Mughniyeh and the other Hezbollah fighters were killed in an Al-Nusra Front ambush at Jaroud in the Qalamoun Mountains in the Al-Qutayfah District northeast of Damascus, claiming that it "will be the end of the Persian project, God willing."
The Jihad Council of Hezbollah is a council responsible for directing the groups' military and security activities. It also exercises considerable influence over the organization's various civilian branches and maintains ties with external partners, including Iran, a key patron of the group.
The al-Hajj Radwan Force is a special operation forces unit of Hezbollah. Its main mission is to infiltrate the territory of Israel, with specific attention to Galilee and northern Israel.
A 14-month-long conflict between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israel began on 8 October 2023, when Hezbollah launched rockets and artillery at Israeli positions following the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel. The conflict escalated into a prolonged exchange of bombardments, leading to extensive displacement in Israel and Lebanon. The conflict, part of the broader Middle Eastern crisis that began with Hamas' attack, marked the largest escalation of the Hezbollah–Israel conflict since the 2006 Lebanon War.
Events of the year 2024 in Israel.
Events in the year 2024 in Lebanon.
In 2024, the Iran–Israel proxy conflict escalated to a series of direct confrontations between the two countries. On 1 April, Israel bombed an Iranian consulate complex in Damascus, Syria, killing multiple senior Iranian officials. In response, Iran and its Axis of Resistance allies seized the Israeli-linked ship MSC Aries and launched strikes inside Israel on 13 April. Israel then carried out retaliatory strikes in Iran and Syria on 19 April.
Fuad Shukr was a Lebanese militant leader who was a senior member of Hezbollah. A member of Hezbollah's founding generation, Shukr was a senior military leader in the organization from the early 1980s. For over four decades, he was one of the group's leading military figures and was a military advisor to its leader Hassan Nasrallah.
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Ibrahim Aqil was a Lebanese militant leader who served as commander-in-chief of Hezbollah's special operations unit, the Redwan Force. He was a member of the Jihad Council, which oversees the military operations of the organisation. Some considered Aqil as the de facto Chief of Staff of Hezbollah.
On 23 September 2024, Israel began a series of airstrikes in Lebanon as part of the ongoing Israel–Hezbollah conflict with an operation it code-named Northern Arrows. Since then, Israel's attacks have killed over 800 people, injured more than 5,000, and displaced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians. The attacks are the deadliest in Lebanon since the end of the Lebanese Civil War, and began five days after Israel performed a deadly pager and walkie-talkie attack on devices intended for Hezbollah members, and three days after Israel performed an airstrike on an apartment complex in Beirut which killed Redwan Force commander Ibrahim Aqil as well as 54 others.
Ali Karaki was a Lebanese militant who was a member of Hezbollah's Jihad Council. He served as the commander of the Southern Front of Hezbollah.
This timeline of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict covers the period that begins 17 September 2024, when Hezbollah pagers exploded throughout Lebanon and Syria, and ends prior to 27 November 2024, when the 2024 Israel–Lebanon ceasefire agreement was signed. Beginning 23 September, Israel began its airstrikes in Lebanon, on 27 September, they assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, and on 1 October, they invaded Lebanon.
On 27 September 2024, Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. The strike took place while Hezbollah leaders were meeting at a headquarters located 60 feet (18 m) underground beneath residential buildings in Haret Hreik in the Dahieh suburb. Conducted by the Israeli Air Force using F-15I fighters, the operation involved dropping more than 80 bombs, including US-made 2,000-pound (910 kg) bunker buster bombs, destroying the underground headquarters as well as nearby buildings. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) codenamed the operation "New Order".
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Lebanon's health ministry says the death toll from yesterday's air attack on Beirut's southern suburb has reached 37 people.
Lebanon's Health Minister says at least 31 people, including three children and seven women, were killed in the Israeli attack on southern Beirut yesterday. Another 68 people were wounded in the attack, he added. The three children among the 31 killed in Israel's attack on southern Beirut yesterday were aged four, six and 10, Lebanon's Health Minister said during a press conference.