An Israeli airstrike killed a Hamas leader earlier today says the Palestinian militant group.
This attack was the first notable Israeli airstrike on Beirut in almost an entire year of conflict. The strike demolished an apartment building in the area as well. This comes after Israel hit multiple targets in the past week, including Hezbollah’s longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah who was killed Friday.
A Lebanese Civil Defense official reported that the airstrike killed a minimum of one person and wounded at least 16, an official with Lebanese Civil Defense said. He continued to mention that the person dead was a member of the al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, a Sunni political and militant group allied with Hezbollah.
According to a Palestinian leftist faction in Lebanon, three of their members were killed in this airstrike. The ‘Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’ said that its military and security commanders in Lebanon died too.
The Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement saying there was nowhere in the Middle East beyond their reach. He said, “Ask Mohammed Deif. Ask Nasrallah. There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach. There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country. With every passing moment, the regime is bringing you — the noble Persian people — closer to the abyss. The vast majority of Iranians know their regime doesn’t care a whit about them. If it did care, if it cared about you, it would stop wasting billions of dollars on futile wars across the Middle East. It would start improving your lives. Imagine if all the vast money the regime wasted on nuclear weapons and foreign wars were invested in your children’s education, in improving your health care, in building your nation’s infrastructure, water, sewage, all the other things that you need. Imagine that. But you know one simple thing – Iran’s tyrants don’t care about your future. But you do. When Iran is finally free and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think – everything will be different…Don’t let a small group of fanatic theocrats crush your hopes and your dreams. You deserve better. Your children deserve better. The entire world deserves better. I know you don’t support the rapists and murderers of Hamas and Hezbollah, but your leaders do. You deserve more. The people of Iran should know – Israel stands with you. May we together know a future of prosperity and peace.”
