Israel has said that the airstrike they launched in Beirut, Lebanon, targeted a Hezbollah commander blamed for a recent deadly attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The strike resulted in at least one fatality and several injuries, as confirmed by the Lebanese state news agency NNA, with the injured being transported to local hospitals.
According to CNN, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant accused Hezbollah of crossing a “red line,” while the group denied involvement in the earlier attack in Golan Heights.
The Israeli military stated that the strike aimed at Fu’ad Shukr, also known as al-Hajj Mohsin, a senior adviser to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and a member of the group’s highest military body, the Jihad Council.
The U.S. State Department offers a $5 million reward for information on Shukr, who is designated as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.”
Despite the attack, a senior Lebanese official told CNN that Shukr survived the strike. Israel aims to send a strong message with this action but hopes to prevent further escalation, depending on Hezbollah’s response.
The Iranian Embassy in Lebanon condemned the strike as “cowardly and sinful Israeli aggression,” while the Iran-backed Houthis and Hamas also criticized the attack and expressed solidarity with Lebanon.
Who Is Hezbollah Commander Fuad Shukr?
Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah commander believed to have been killed by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Tuesday, has been a prominent military figure in the group since its founding by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards over forty years ago.
Shukr, part of the generation of Lebanese Shi’ites who established Hezbollah during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, was closely associated with the group’s late military commander Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in Damascus in 2008, according to Hezbollah sources.
The United States asserts that Shukr, believed to be in his 60s, was a key figure in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, which resulted in the deaths of 241 U.S. military personnel.
