PressAdda
TEL AVIV: The Israeli military claimed responsibility for the bombing that killed 12 children and teens playing football on a field in the Golan Heights over the weekend, and said that it attacked the Hezbollah commander in Beirut. A deafening explosion erupted, and a column of smoke lifted up above the southern suburbs of Beirut, a bastion of Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah terrorists.
Authorities reported two deaths and multiple buildings destroyed, according to a Hezbollah official. Fuad Shukr was named as the Hezbollah leader in Middle Eastern media reports, however it remained unclear what became of him.
Shukr survived, according to Al-Hadath, a Saudi news site. According to an Israeli security source, however, there is a very good chance that the Hezbollah officer was removed, as reported by the Israeli news website ynet. He is no longer with us if he was inside the structure.
Shukr has long been involved in the U.S.-designated terrorist organization and was thought to be Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah,’s military advisor. He oversaw the operations room of the militant group.
He was wanted by the US for his claimed involvement in the 1983 bombing of the US Marine Barracks in Beirut, and the US imposed sanctions on him in 2015. A $5 million bounty was “on his head” for the Hezbollah official, according to United States Rewards for Justice, a State Department organization that tracks down wanted terrorists.
The Israeli strike, according to the state-run official news agency of Lebanon, was directed towards the vicinity of Hezbollah’s Shura Council in the capital’s Haret Hreik neighborhood. Hezbollah has denied any involvement in the incident on Saturday that took place in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, but Israel and the US have blamed Hezbollah for it.
The Israeli military earlier claimed to have attacked Hezbollah targets in seven southern Lebanon areas with artillery and airstrikes, while U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin voiced concern that the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip and hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah could spread to other parts of the region.
During a visit to the Philippines on Tuesday, Austin told reporters, “While we have observed a lot of activity on Israel’s northern border, we remain concerned about the risk of this growing into a full-blown fight.”
Austin stated, “We would prefer to have problems settled diplomatically.” Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, reaffirmed Israel’s assertion that Hezbollah was behind the deadly rocket strike on the Golan Heights and pledged on Monday to respond to it forcefully.
Netanyahu declared, “These children are our children, they are the children of all of us,” when touring the scene of the attack. The state of Israel is unable and unwilling to ignore this. We will respond, and it will not be nice. (VOA)
