Israel claims top Hezbollah leaders killed in latest strikes on Beirut

The Israeli military has said it has eliminated several commanders of radical Islamic militant outfit Hezbollah during the air strikes in Lebanon. "The IAF (Israeli Air Force) struck and eliminated the terrorist Muhammad Ali Ismail, the commander of Hezbollah's missile unit in southern Lebanon, and his deputy, the terrorist Hussein Ahmad Ismail," the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in the early hours of Saturday. "Additional Hezbollah commanders and operatives were eliminated alongside them," the IDF added.

The IDF said Ismail was responsible for directing attacks against Israel, including the launch of a surface-to-air missile on Wednesday. The IDF also said in a statement that Ismail was "responsible for many acts of terrorism... including rocket launches towards the territory of the State of Israel and the launch of a surface-to-surface missile towards the centre of the country last Wednesday".

The Israeli military said it also killed Ibrahim Muhammad Kabisi and "other senior officials in Hezbollah's missile and rocket array". Hezbollah has neither confirmed nor denied Israel's announcement about the commanders.

Israeli strikes hit Lebanon throughout Friday, including in the southern suburbs of capital Beirut, where the IDF said it was conducting "targeted strikes" on Hezbollah weapons stored underneath civilian buildings.

Hezbollah has denied that its weapons were being stored in civilian buildings targeted by Israeli strikes on the Dahiyeh area of southern Beirut on Friday. "The claims made by the enemy regarding the presence of weapons in the bombed civilian buildings are completely false," Hezbollah said in its first official comments on the airstrikes.

Explosions continue to rock the Lebanese capital early Saturday morning local time. The IDF previously said it was "conducting targeted strikes on weapons belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation that were stored beneath civilian buildings", and had told residents to evacuate certain areas.

The latest strikes come hours after an initial Israeli attack on what it said was Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut on Friday. That operation flattened several buildings in a densely populated area, killing at least six people and wounding dozens of others, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Rescuers are still searching for survivors and any further victims, warning the current death toll is not final.

Late on Friday (India time), multiple Israeli TV channels reported that the Israeli military's strikes on the headquarters of Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Beirut were targeting the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The Israeli army had made no comment on the reports, but given the size and timing of the blast, there were strong indications that a high-value target was inside the building at the time, Associated Press reported. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed targeting Hezbollah's central command centre in the densely populated Dahiyeh suburb, which is known as a stronghold for the group.

"The IDF (military) carried out a precise strike on the central headquarters of the terrorist organisation Hezbollah in Dahiyeh," military spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised statement.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said six buildings were "levelled to the ground" by the strikes. The news outlet Axios cited an Israeli source as saying Nasrallah was the target of the strike and that the Israeli military was checking if he had been hit. Explosions from the strikes were heard across Beirut, shaking windows and buildings as far as 30 km from the city centre.

Thick black smoke billowed into the sky, and ambulances were seen racing toward the site of the blasts in Dahiyeh, with sirens echoing throughout the city. Hospitals in the area were receiving casualties, but the scale was not immediately clear. Officials at Sahel hospital near the scene of the strike said they had received 10 wounded, three of them critically, including a Syrian child.

The strike came amid heightened tensions following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's vow to escalate Israel's offensive against Hezbollah. Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Friday, Netanyahu reiterated Israel's commitment to confronting Hezbollah, stating, "As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice and Israel has every right to remove this threat."

A Lebanese security source told Reuters that Friday's assault was the largest Israeli attack on the capital's southern suburbs since the conflict began earlier this week. The escalation of violence follows a week of intensive airstrikes across southern Lebanon, where Israel has been targeting Hezbollah positions.

More than 700 people have reportedly been killed, and tens of thousands of civilians have fled their homes amid the bombardment. Netanyahu's UN speech, delivered shortly before the Beirut strike, was defiant, dismissing ongoing international efforts to broker a ceasefire in the conflict. The US, European Union, and several Arab nations had proposed a three-week ceasefire to stem the violence. However, Netanyahu focused on achieving "total victory" over Hezbollah and its ally Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip.