IDF strike on Hezbollah’s Beirut HQ targets Hassan Nasrallah
"Israel is doing what every sovereign state would do if they had a terror organization that seeks their destruction on their border," said IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari.
JNS
Sep 27, 2024
A massive airstrike by Israel Defense Forces on Hezbollah’s Beirut headquarters targeted terror chief Hassan Nasrallah early Friday evening, according to Israeli and U.S. officials.
The IDF’s working assessment was that Nasrallah was most likely killed in the attack, according to Israel’s Channel 12.
Jerusalem reportedly notified Washington about the assassination attempt only after Air Force fighter jets had taken flight.
U.S. President Joe Biden was briefed by his national security team on the strike, the White House said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who delivered a defiant speech on Friday morning in New York City during the 79th Session of the U.N. General Assembly, was being briefed on developments and gave the approval for the attack, according to his office.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant posted a photo on X of himself with senior military leadership shortly after the strike saying that the IDF will continue to hit Hezbollah “everywhere, at any time,” until residents of northern Israel can return home.
Iran’s embassy in Lebanon condemned the strike and vowed to “bring its perpetrator an appropriate punishment.
“This reprehensible crime … represents a dangerous escalation that changes the rules of the game,” according to the mission.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei convened an emergency session of the Supreme National Security Council, the New York Times reported.
IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said warplanes conducted a “precise strike on [Hezbollah’s] central headquarters… intentionally built under residential buildings” in the heart of the Dahiyeh district of the Lebanese capital.
“On Oct. 8, Hezbollah started attacking Israel,” Hagari said in a video statement. “After almost a year of Hezbollah firing rockets, missiles and suicide drones at Israeli civilians, and after almost a year of Israel warning the world and telling them that Hezbollah must be stopped, Israel is doing what every sovereign state would do if they had a terror organization that seeks their destruction on their border.”
IDF in escalation mode
On Thursday, the IDF killed the head of Hezbollah’s aerial forces in an airstrike in Beirut’s Dahiyeh district. Senior terrorist Muhammad Hossein Sarur commanded numerous attacks with “cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles launched at the Israeli home front,” the IDF stated.
On Tuesday, Israeli Air Force jets carried out another strike in Dahiyeh, killing Ibrahim Qubaisi, the commander of Hezbollah’s missile array.
That strike came fewer than 24 hours after the attempted assassination of Hezbollah’s No. 3 terrorist commander, Ali Karaki, in the same area.
Last Friday, the IDF took credit for strike in Dahiyeh that killed more than a dozen senior Hezbollah terrorists, including Ibrahim Aqil, whom Washington also wanted for his involvement in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut.
Jerusalem has escalated strikes on Hezbollah since adding the return of evacuated Israeli civilians to the north as an official war goal on Sept. 17.
Hezbollah has attacked Israel nearly daily since Oct. 8, firing some 9,000 rockets, missiles and drones. The attacks have killed more than 40 people and caused widespread damage. Tens of thousands of Israeli civilians remain displaced internally due to the violence.
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