BEIRUT (AP) — A rare Israeli airstrike on central Beirut killed Hezbollah's chief spokesman on Sunday, an official with the militant group said. Earlier, Israeli strikes killed at least 12 people in the Gaza Strip, officials said, where Israel has been at war with the Palestinian Hamas for over a year.
The latest in a series of targeted killings of senior Hezbollah officials came as Lebanese officials were considering a United States-led cease-fire proposal. Israel also bombed several buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has long been headquartered, after warning people to evacuate.
Mohammed Afif, the head of media relations for Hezbollah, was killed in a strike on the Arab socialist Baath party's office in central Beirut, according to a Hezbollah official who was not authorized to brief reporters and so spoke on condition of anonymity.
Afif had remained especially visible after the eruption of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah in September and the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was also targeted by an Israeli airstrike. Last month, Afif had hastily wrapped up a press conference in Beirut ahead of Israeli strikes.
An Associated Press photographer at the scene of Sunday's strike saw four lifeless bodies and four wounded people, but there was no official word on the toll. People could be seen fleeing the neighborhood. There was no comment from the Israeli military.
“I was asleep and awoke from the sound of the strike, and people screaming, and cars and gunfire," said Suheil Halabi, who witnessed the strike. "I was startled, honestly. This is the first time I experience it so close.”
The last Israeli strike in central Beirut was on Oct. 10, when 22 people were killed in strikes on two locations.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel the day after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack ignited the war in Gaza. Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes in Lebanon and the conflict steadily escalated, erupting into all-out war in September. Israeli forces invaded Lebanon on Oct. 1.
Hezbollah has continued to fire dozens of projectiles into Israel each day and has expanded their range to the central part of the country. A rocket barrage on the northern city of Haifa on Saturday damaged a synagogue and wounded two civilians.
More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the country’s Health Ministry, and over 1.2 million driven from their homes. It is not known how many of the dead are Hezbollah fighters.
On the Israeli side, Hezbollah’s aerial attacks have killed at least 76 people, including 31 soldiers, and caused some 60,000 people to flee from communities in the north.
Israeli strikes killed six people in Nuseirat and another four in Bureij, two built-up refugee camps in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
Another two people were killed in a strike on Gaza’s main north-south highway, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah, which received all 12 bodies.
The war between Israel and Hamas began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7. last year, killing about 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting around 250 others. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead.
The Health Ministry in Gaza says around 43,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but has said women and children make up more than half the fatalities.
Around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced, and large areas of the territory have been flattened by Israeli bombardment and ground operations.
Israeli police meanwhile arrested three suspects after flares were fired at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in the coastal city of Caesarea.
Netanyahu and his family were not at the residence when two flares were fired at it overnight, and there were no injuries, authorities said. A drone launched by Hezbollah struck the residence last month, also when Netanyahu and his family were away.
The police did not provide details about the suspects behind the flares, but officials pointed to domestic political critics of Netanyahu. Israel’s largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the incident and warned against “an escalation of the violence in the public sphere.”
Netanyahu has faced months of mass protests. Critics blaming him for the security and intelligence failures that allowed the Oct. 7 attack to happen and for not reaching a deal with Hamas to release scores of hostages still held inside Gaza. Israelis rallied again in the city of Tel Aviv on Saturday night to demand a cease-fire deal to return them.
Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin seized on the flare attack on Netanyahu's home to call for a revival of his plans to overhaul the Israeli judiciary, which had sparked months of mass protests before the war.
“The time has come to provide full support for the restoration of the justice system and the law enforcement systems, and to put an end to anarchy, rampage, refusal, and attempts to harm the prime minister,” he said in a statement.
Supporters said the judiciary changes aim to strengthen democracy by circumscribing the authority of unelected judges and turning over more powers to elected officials. Opponents see the overhaul as a power grab by Netanyahu, who is on trial on corruption charges and for an assault on a key watchdog.
Many Israelis believe the fierce internal divisions caused by the attempted overhaul had weakened the country and its military ahead of the Hamas assault.
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said in a post on X that he “strongly condemns” the firing of flares at Netanyahu’s home while blasting Levin’s proposal.
“Levin should go home with rest of this irresponsible government,” Lapid wrote. “We will not let him turn Israel into an undemocratic state.”
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Melzer reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press reporters Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed.
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Find more of AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
