TDI said that it killed the Hezbollah operation posing an “immediate threat” in Beirut’s strike

The Israeli and Shin Bet defense forces said on Tuesday that the forces had struck a Hezbollah agent in Beirut who recently helped members of the terrorist group supported by Iran, Hamas, an “important and imminent terrorist attack against Israeli civilians”.

In a later declaration, the army, Shin Bet and the Mossad said that the Israeli fighter planes had managed to kill Hassan Bdair, a member of the Hezbollah 3900 unity and the Iranian Islamic revolutionary guardian elite force.

A source close to Hezbollah had previously declared to AFP that Bdair was the target, describing it as “the assistant head of Hezbollah for the Palestinian file” which was struck when he was “at home with his family”.

According to the Ministry of Lebanon of Health, four people were killed and seven injured in the attack on the suburbs of southern Dahiyeh in Beirut, a bastion of Hezbollah. The United States has expressed its support for the strike, while Lebanon criticized him, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun seeming to blame the Hezbollah for provoking the attack, and a legislator for the terrorist group demanding that the Lebanese state responds to the attack.

It was Israel’s second attack on Beirut from the ceasefire on November 27, which ended more than a year of war between Israel and Hezbollah. Friday, the FDI struck Beirut after two rockets were fired in northern Israel. Hezbollah denied having launched the rockets. The truce agreement gives Israel the right to act against imminent threats.

Tuesday’s strike seemed to have damaged the three upper floors of a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a journalist from Reuters on the scene, said balconies of these floors. The glass on the floors below was intact, indicating a targeted strike. The ambulances were on the scene to recover victims.

Following the strike, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Sa’ar, said Tuesday that Lebanon was to repress terrorist groups in his country and prevent future attacks on Israel.

“We expect Lebanon to take action to uproot terrorist organizations acting within its borders against Israel,” said Sa’ar at a press conference for foreign media. “What we have seen here is cooperation between Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas on Lebanon soil in order to initiate terrorist attacks against the Israelis.”

Unlike Friday’s attack, Tuesday’s strike was not preceded by the FDI evacuation orders, according to witnesses, who said that families had fled following the strike in other parts of the Lebanese capital.

“We were with us. It is Eid al-Fitr, “said Hussein Nour El-Din, a resident in the neighborhood, referring to the Islamic holidays that marks the end of the sacred month of Ramadan. “We did not know where it had happened, but once the smoke emerged, we saw that it was the building against us.”

In a statement via the X account of the Lebanese presidency, Aoun said that the last strike on Beirut was a “dangerous warning” which signals the premeditous intentions against Lebanon.

The declaration has promised to protect Lebanon’s sovereignty against foreign threats, “or infiltrators inside, which give an additional pretext to attack” – apparently a reference to Hezbollah.

Aoun, whose elections in January ended a two -year deadlock, promised to maintain a state monopoly on the right to carry weapons – a barely veiled threat against the vast arsenal of Hezbollah.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said in a statement published by his office that the strike on the south of Beirut was a “clear violation” of the ceasefire in November.

Salam also described the strike as “flagrant violation of the United Nations resolution 1701”, a decision of the Security Council which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and served as the basis of the November break.

However, this resolution – which prohibited Hezbollah from being present in southern Lebanon – has been insufficiently implemented, the terrorist group retaining a major military presence near the Israel border over the years and would have planned its own invasion at the time of the Hamas assault on October 7, 2023.

Addressing journalists near the strike site, the Hezbollah legislator, Ibrahim Musawi, said that the Lebanese authorities should “act with the highest level of efficiency, to ensure that the international community is responsible and take the highest level of measures to guarantee the safety of Lebanese”.

“What happened is a very big attack,” he added.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the US State Department said in an email in Reuters that Washington had supported the Israeli attack, saying that “hostilities had resumed because the terrorists have launched rockets in Israel from Lebanon.”

The United States also supported Israeli strikes last week, calling on Beirut to do a better job to enforce the ceasefire by ensuring the disarmament of all terrorist groups in Lebanon.

Israel previously attacked other regions of Lebanon where she identified imminent threats by Hezbollah and affiliated terrorist groups. Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said on Saturday that the Government of Lebanon had failed to stem the Israeli attack, Hezbollah would resort to “other alternatives”.

Not provoked, Hezbollah began to attack northern Israel on a daily basis since October 8, 2023 – one day after the terrorist group supported by Iran, Hamas, led an invasion and the attack in the south of Israel in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage, triggering the war in Gaza.

By virtue of the ceasefire in November, Hezbollah was forced to draw its forces north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the Israeli border, and to dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the South, while the Lebanese army has moved to control the area.

Israel, on the other hand, was forced to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon within 60 days. The deadline for withdrawal has been postponed, with the approval of Lebanese and the United States, until February 18. Israel finally withdrew from all of Lebanon with the exception of five strategic positions along the border. While the White House expressed its support for partial withdrawal, Beirut called Israel to withdraw entirely from Lebanon.

Times of Israel Staff contributed to this report.