The Israeli army said on Sunday it has killed another senior Hezbollah official in an airstrike, as the terrorist group in Lebanon reels from a series of devastating blows and the assassination of its long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
The Israeli army said it killed Nabil Kaouk, the deputy head of Hezbollah’s Central County, in an airstrike on Saturday. Hezbollah confirmed his death, making him the seventh senior Hezbollah leader to be killed in Israeli strikes in just over a week. Among them are founding members who avoided death or detention for decades.
Kaouk was an experienced member of Hezbollah dating back to the 1980s, serving as Hezbollah’s military commander in southern Lebanon during the 2006 war with Israel. He often appeared in local media, commenting on political and security developments, and delivered eulogies at the funerals of leading militants. The United States announced sanctions against him in 2020.
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The announcement of Kaouk’s death came a day after the Israeli military said it was a homicide Nasrallah in an afternoon airstrike on Friday in Beirut. On Sunday, Hezbollah confirmed that among those killed in Friday’s airstrike was Ali Karaki, one of the group’s senior commanders.
The Israeli military also said on Sunday that dozens of aircraft have attacked Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the militants’ recent attacks on Israel.
President Biden said he would speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, adding that he believes all-out war in the Middle East should be avoided.
“It has to be this way,” Biden told reporters on Sunday as he departed for Washington aboard Air Force One. “We really need to avoid that.”
He did not say when he planned to speak with Netanyahu.
Biden calls Nasrallah’s death a ‘measure of justice’
On Saturday, Biden said Nasrallah‘s death in the Israeli airstrike was a “measure of justice” for his many victims.
In a White House statement, Mr. Biden said that “Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans during a four-decade reign of terror,” including thousands of Israelis and Lebanese citizens.
Asked by reporters Saturday whether an Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon was inevitable, Biden replied: “It’s time for a ceasefire.”
Several Senior Hezbollah commanders have been killed in the Israeli attacks in recent weeks. The US-designated terrorist group was also the target of a sophisticated attack on its pages and walkie-talkies That was widely attributed to Israel.
Thousands of people in shelters after strikes
According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, the wave of Israeli airstrikes in large parts of Lebanon has killed more than a thousand people in less than two weeks, including 156 women and 87 children.
Early Monday, another Israeli airstrike leveled an apartment building in central Beirut, an Associated Press journalist at the scene said. Video showed ambulances and a crowd gathering at the building in a mainly Sunni neighborhood with a busy thoroughfare lined with shops.
The airstrike killed at least one person and injured 16, said a Lebanese Civil Defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He said the person killed was a member of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or Islamic Group, a Sunni political and militant group linked to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets into northern Israel, but most have been intercepted or fallen into open areas, causing few casualties and only scattered damage.
A Lebanese minister leading the country’s emergency response said the government estimates that around 250,000 people have left their homes and taken refuge in government-run and informal shelters.
Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images
Environment Minister Nasser Yassin told the Associated Press that the total number is about “four times the number of those directly affected and/or displaced outside the shelters.”
The United Nations said 211,319 people had been forced to move as of Friday, and that was before some intensive Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in recent days.
The Lebanese government has converted schools and other facilities into temporary shelters. Yet many sleep on the streets or in public squares as the government and non-governmental organizations try to find them places to stay.
MAHMOUD ZAYYAT/AFP via Getty Images
The fighting escalates as the airstrikes continue
Amid the escalation from Israel – which a US official said would send ground troops to the border with Lebanon for a possible limited ground invasion next week – the Lebanese army called for calm among the Lebanese “in this dangerous and delicate phase.” “
Government officials fear the country’s deep political divisions at a time of war could reignite sectarian strife and violence in the small Mediterranean country.
“The Israeli enemy is working to carry out its destructive plans and sow division among the Lebanese,” the army said.
Military vehicles have been deployed in several parts of the capital as thousands of displaced people continue to move into Beirut from the south.
Hassan Ammar / AP
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s state news agency said an Israeli airstrike early Sunday destroyed a house in the northeastern village of al-Ain, killing 11 people. Six of the bodies were recovered from the rubble while the search continued for the remaining five, the National News Agency reported.
The successive strikes on Sunday in Ain el-Delb, east of Sidon, were captured on camera by neighbors in the area. The Health Ministry said at least 29 people were also injured in the strikes.
In addition, the Health Ministry said Israeli attacks in the northern province of Baalbek Hermel killed 21 people and injured at least 47.
In southern Lebanon, the Islamic Risala Scout Association said five of its members were killed while carrying out their duties. Four of the men killed were from the southern village of Tayr Debba, while the fifth was from nearby Kabrikha.
Hezbollah began firing missiles, rockets and drones into northern Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack from Gaza sparked the war there. Hezbollah and Hamas are allies who consider themselves part of an Iranian-backed ‘Axis of Resistance’ against Israel.
Israel has responded with waves of airstrikes, and the conflict has steadily moved toward the brink of all-out war, raising fears of a region-wide conflagration.
A senior Israeli official said Friday that Israel is not seeking a broader regional war, but that Hezbollah’s military capabilities have been meaningfully compromised by the recent series of Israeli military operations. the goal of the strike was that Hezbollah was left with a significant leadership gap.
Israel hits Houthi targets in Yemen
The Israeli military said on Sunday it was targeting power plants and seaport facilities in Yemen’s Hodeida city.
The Houthi media agency said the Israeli strikes hit the ports of Hodeida and Rass Issa, along with two power plants in the city of Hodeida, a stronghold for the Iran-backed rebels. After the attacks, plumes of fire and smoke could be seen in the sky above Hodeida.
The group said it had taken precautions and that Israel’s strikes would not stop Houthi attacks on shipping lanes and on Israel.
The Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport on Saturday as Netanyahu arrived on a flight from the United States.
