Rayak(Lebanon), Feb 21: Israeli airstrikes on eastern Lebanon have killed eight members of the militant Hezbollah group, including several local officials, two officials with the group said Saturday.
The Lebanese Health Ministry put the death toll at 10, but did not distinguish between militants and civilians.
The Hezbollah officials told The Associated Press that the eight militants were killed in strikes near the village of Rayak in northeast Lebanon late Friday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media about such details.
An Associated Press team that visited the scene of the strike Saturday morning saw that the top floor of a three-story building was knocked out.
The Israeli military said Saturday that several members of Hezbollah’s missile unit, in three different command centres in the Baalbek area in Lebanon, were “eliminated.”
The Israeli army added that the Hezbollah members killed were identified “as operating to accelerate readiness and force build-up processes, while planning fire attacks toward Israel.”
One of the Hezbollah officials said that three of the dead were local commanders and identified them as Ali al-Moussawi, Mohammed al-Moussawi and Hussein Yaghi.
Yaghi was the son of prominent Hezbollah official and one of its founders, Mohammed Yaghi, who died in 2023. Mohammed Yaghi was also a close aide to late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September 2024.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Saturday that Israeli strikes on eastern Lebanon killed 10 people and wounded 24, including three children.
Ali Abdullah, executive director of Rayak Hospital, told the AP that the strike occurred after sunset, adding that they have received 10 bodies and 21 wounded. He added that the dead included two non-Lebanese — a Syrian man and an Ethiopian woman. The wounded included five Syrians and three Ethiopians.
Ethiopians often come to Lebanon as migrant domestic workers.
A funeral was held Saturday afternoon in the eastern village of Nabi Chit for two Hezbollah members who were killed in the strikes.
After the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza, Hezbollah began firing rockets from Lebanon into Israel in support of Hamas and the Palestinians.
Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling. The low-level conflict escalated into full-scale war in September 2024, later reined in but not fully stopped by a US-brokered ceasefire two months later.
Since then, Israel has accused Hezbollah of trying to rebuild and has carried out near-daily strikes in Lebanon that it says target Hezbollah militants and facilities. Hezbollah has claimed one strike against Israel since the ceasefire.
The death toll from Friday’s strikes was unusually high and comes at a moment of intensified tensions in the region as the United States has threatened to strike Iran — a backer of both Hezbollah and Hamas — if negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program fail to produce a deal. (AP)
