Hezbollah identifies second top commander killed in Israeli airstrike in Lebanon

The Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah announced Saturday that another one of its top commanders was killed in Friday’s targeted Israeli airstrike on the country’s capital of Beirut. 

Ahmed Wahbi, who oversaw the military operations of Hezbollah’s Radwan special forces unit until early 2024, is among the 16 members of the group who were eliminated in the strike, Reuters cited Hezbollah as saying. 

The development comes as the Israel Defense Forces said it was carrying out more airstrikes targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon on Saturday. 

Friday’s strike also killed Ibrahim Aqil, another commander of the Radwan special forces who served on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council, according to the U.S. State Department. 

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“During the 1980s, Aqil was a principal member of Hezbollah’s terrorist cell the Islamic Jihad Organization, which claimed responsibility for the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April 1983, which killed 63 people, and the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in October 1983, which killed 241 U.S. personnel,” the State Department says. 

Hezbollah released a statement describing Aqil as “one of its top leaders” who was killed in a “treacherous Israeli assassination,” Reuters reports. 

Israel said Friday following the airstrike in southern Beirut that “We can now confirm that Ibrahim Aqil was eliminated together with other senior terrorists in Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces.” 

The overall death toll from the airstrike is 31, including seven women and three children, Lebanon’s health minister said on Saturday. 

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The airstrike reportedly knocked out an eight-story building that had 16 apartments and damaged another one adjacent to it. The missiles destroyed the first building and cut through the basement of the second where a meeting of Hezbollah officials was being held, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene. 

Health Minister Firass Abiad told reporters 68 people were also wounded of whom 15 remain in the hospital, adding that search and rescue operations were still ongoing, with the number of casualties likely to rise. 

The Minister of Public Works and Transport Ali Hamie told reporters at the scene that 23 people are still missing. 

Fox News’ Yael Kuriel and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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