Israeli strikes kill Hamas leader in Lebanon and 3 Palestinian leaders in Beirut
Israel targets Palestinian group in first strike on Beirut centre, and Hamas’ leader in Lebanon in the country’s south
The Palestinian militant group Hamas said an Israeli air strike killed its leader in Lebanon in the city of Tyre on Monday, and another Palestinian organisation said three of its leaders were killed in a strike in central Beirut – the first such hit inside the capital’s limits.
The killings were the latest in a two-week wave of intensified Israeli attacks on militant targets in Lebanon, part of a conflict now also stretching from the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, to Yemen, and in Israel itself.
Hamas said its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin was killed along with his wife, son and daughter, in a strike that targeted their house in a refugee camp in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre in the early hours of Monday.
Another group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), said three of its leaders were killed in a strike that targeted Beirut’s Kola district.
This was the first time Israel had struck Beirut beyond the city’s southern suburbs in a campaign which culminated in the assassination of Hezbollah’s veteran leader Hassan Nasrallah last week in a succession of heavy air strikes.