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Earlier, officials said Israeli strikes killed at least 12 people in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been at war with Palestinian Hamas for more than a year.
The latest targeted killings of senior Hezbollah officials came as Lebanese officials considered a U.S.-led ceasefire proposal. Israel also bombed several buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah has long been based, after warning people to evacuate.
Mohammed Afif, head of media relations for Hezbollah, was killed on Sunday (Monday AEDT) in an attack on the office of the Arab Socialist Baath Party in central Beirut, according to a Hezbollah official who was not authorized to brief reporters and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Afif was particularly visible after the outbreak of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah in September and the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike. Last month, Afif hurriedly ended a press conference in Beirut ahead of the Israeli strikes.
There was no Israeli evacuation warning before the strike near a busy intersection in central Beirut.
An Associated Press photographer at the scene saw four bodies and four wounded people, but there was no official information on casualties. People were seen running away. There was no comment from the Israeli army.
“I fell asleep and woke up to the sound of banging, people screaming, cars and gunfire,” said Suheil Halabi, a witness. “I was stunned, honestly. It’s the first time I’ve seen it so close.”
The last Israeli strike in downtown Beirut was on October 10, when 22 people were killed in two locations.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones at Israel a day after an October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas ignited the Gaza war.
Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes in Lebanon and the conflict steadily escalated, escalating into war in September. Israeli forces invaded Lebanon on October 1st.
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