Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday killed 31, Lebanese ministry says

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - At least 31 people died in an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb on Friday, the Lebanese health ministry said on Saturday, including three children and seven women, in the deadliest strike in a year of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.

Hezbollah said overnight that the dead included 16 of its members, including senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and another top commander, Ahmed Wahbi.

The strike sharply escalated the conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group and inflicted another blow on Hezbollah after two days of attacks this week in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded. The total death toll in those attacks has risen to 39, and more than 3,000 were injured.

The attacks on communications devices were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

Hezbollah-aligned transport minister Ali Hamieh told reporters at the scene of Friday's strike that at least 23 people were still missing.

“The Israeli enemy is taking the region to war,” he said. The ministry had dispatched vehicles and equipment to help rescuers dig through the collapsed buildings. “We’ve been taking out women and children from under the rubble,” he said.

Hezbollah confirmed Aqil's death in a statement just after midnight that called him "one of its top leaders".

It said overnight that 15 other members were also killed, including senior commander Wahbi, who oversaw the military operations of the Radwan special forces during the Gaza war until early 2024.

The Friday afternoon strike targeted a building next door to a nursery, which suffered impact from the strike, a security source said on Friday.

A second security source said multiple missiles slammed into the opening of a building's garage. The explosion tore into the building's lower levels as Aqil met other commanders inside.

In a brief statement on Friday evening carried by Israeli media, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel's goals were clear and its actions spoke for themselves.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who said this week that Israel is launching a new phase of war on the northern border, posted on X: "The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes."

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in October in sympathy with Palestinians in the nearly year-old Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza.

Israel's military said on Saturday that airspace in northern Israel - from the city of Hadera north - was closed to private flights, but said the measure did not affect international flights.

"These restrictions were set in place to maintain the security of flights and in accordance with operational activity," the military said.

'DANGEROUS CYCLE OF VIOLENCE'

With at least 70 people killed in Lebanon this week, the death toll in the country since October has surpassed 740. The current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is the worst since they fought an all-out war in 2006.  

The U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine-Hennis Plasschaert, said on Friday that the strike in a densely populated area of Beirut's southern suburbs was part of "an extremely dangerous cycle of violence with devastating consequences. This must stop now."

Friday's strike marked the second time in less than two months that Israel has targeted a leading Hezbollah military commander in Beirut. In July, an Israeli airstrike killed Fuad Shukr, the group's top military commander.

While the current conflict has largely been contained to areas at or near the frontier, this week's escalation has heightened concerns that it could widen and further intensify. 

(Reporting by Maya Gebeily, Hatem Maher, Adam Makary and Ari Rabinovitch; Writing by Frances Kerry; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)