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Israeli Strike Kills ‘al-Jamaa al-Islamiya’ Leader in Eastern Lebanon

Emergency and security service members and residents gather around the carcass of a car at the site of an Israeli strike in al-Khiyara town in Lebanon's Western Bekaa area on June 22, 2024, which killed a member of the Jamaa Islamiya group according to a Lebanese security source. (Photo by Hassan JARRAH / AFP)
Emergency and security service members and residents gather around the carcass of a car at the site of an Israeli strike in al-Khiyara town in Lebanon's Western Bekaa area on June 22, 2024, which killed a member of the Jamaa Islamiya group according to a Lebanese security source. (Photo by Hassan JARRAH / AFP)
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Israeli Strike Kills ‘al-Jamaa al-Islamiya’ Leader in Eastern Lebanon

Emergency and security service members and residents gather around the carcass of a car at the site of an Israeli strike in al-Khiyara town in Lebanon's Western Bekaa area on June 22, 2024, which killed a member of the Jamaa Islamiya group according to a Lebanese security source. (Photo by Hassan JARRAH / AFP)
Emergency and security service members and residents gather around the carcass of a car at the site of an Israeli strike in al-Khiyara town in Lebanon's Western Bekaa area on June 22, 2024, which killed a member of the Jamaa Islamiya group according to a Lebanese security source. (Photo by Hassan JARRAH / AFP)

A security source said a leader of the Lebanese militant group al-Jamaa al-Islamiya was killed Saturday in an Israeli strike on a vehicle in eastern Lebanon.
Since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7, Hezbollah and other groups allied with the Palestinian Hamas group have traded near-daily fire with Israel across the southern border.
"A leader of the al-Fajr Forces of the al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, Ayman Ghotmeh, was killed in an Israeli strike in Khiara in the western Bekaa," 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border with Syria, the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The Fajr Forces, al-Jamaa al-Islamiya's armed wing, was established in 1982 to fight the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
The group has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks against Israel, including joint operations with Hamas in Lebanon. It is estimated to number around 500 men.
Lebanon's state-run ANI news agency reported one person killed when a car was targeted in Khiara, and that the victim was from the nearby village of Lala, without giving further details.
Israel's military said an aircraft carried out a "precise strike in the Beqaa area in Lebanon in order to eliminate the terrorist" Ayman Ghotmeh, who they said supplied weapons to Hamas and al-Jamaa al-Islamiya in Lebanon.
He was targeted for his "involvement in the promotion and execution of terrorist activities against Israel", the Israeli statement added.
Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, which has had seven fighters killed in Lebanon since October 7, did not immediately announce any deaths.
On April 26, the group said two of their leaders were killed in an Israeli strike in eastern Lebanon.
More than eight months of violence on the Israel-Lebanon border has left at least 480 people dead in Lebanon, mostly fighters but including at least 93 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.
Heightened tensions in recent days on the Israel-Lebanon border have raised fears of an expanded regional conflict.

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Israeli Strike Hits North Lebanon as Raids Pummel Beirut Suburbs

FILED - 29 September 2024, Lebanon, Beirut: A Lebanese man stands among rubble, debris and smoke that is still billowing from the site of the massive Israeli air strike that killed pro-Iranian Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's southern suburb. Photo: Marwan Naamani/dpa
FILED - 29 September 2024, Lebanon, Beirut: A Lebanese man stands among rubble, debris and smoke that is still billowing from the site of the massive Israeli air strike that killed pro-Iranian Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's southern suburb. Photo: Marwan Naamani/dpa
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Israeli Strike Hits North Lebanon as Raids Pummel Beirut Suburbs

FILED - 29 September 2024, Lebanon, Beirut: A Lebanese man stands among rubble, debris and smoke that is still billowing from the site of the massive Israeli air strike that killed pro-Iranian Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's southern suburb. Photo: Marwan Naamani/dpa
FILED - 29 September 2024, Lebanon, Beirut: A Lebanese man stands among rubble, debris and smoke that is still billowing from the site of the massive Israeli air strike that killed pro-Iranian Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's southern suburb. Photo: Marwan Naamani/dpa

An Israeli strike hit Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli for the first time early on Saturday, a Lebanese security source said, after more bombardment hit Beirut's suburbs and Israeli troops sought to make new ground incursions into southern Lebanon.

The source told Reuters a Hamas official, his wife and two children were killed in the strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in Tripoli. Hamas-affiliated media said the strike killed a leader of the group's armed wing.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike on Tripoli, a port city.

Israel has sharply expanded its strikes on Lebanon in recent weeks after nearly a year of exchanging fire with Lebanon's Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah. Fighting had been mostly limited to the Israel-Lebanon border area, taking place in parallel to Israel's year-old war in Gaza against Hamas.

Israel has been carrying out nightly bombardment of Beirut's once densely populated southern suburbs, a stronghold of Hezbollah. Overnight, a military spokesman issued three alerts for residents there to evacuate, and Reuters witnesses then heard at least one blast.

On Friday, Israel said it had targeted Hezbollah's intelligence headquarters in the southern suburbs and was assessing the damage after a series of strikes on senior figures in the group.

Israel has eliminated much of Hezbollah's senior military leadership, including Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in an air attack on Sept. 27.

Lebanon's government says more than 2,000 people have been killed there in the past year, most in the past two weeks. Strikes on medical teams and facilities, including the Lebanese Red Cross, Lebanese public hospitals and rescue workers affiliated to Hezbollah, have also increased.

Lebanon's government says more than 1.2 million Lebanese have been forced from their homes, and the United Nations says most displacement shelters in the country are full. Many had gone north to Tripoli or to neighboring Syria, but an Israeli strike on Friday closed the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric called the toll on Lebanese civilians "totally unacceptable".

IRAN DEFIANT, ISRAEL WEIGHS OPTIONS

Israel has been weighing options in its response to Iran's ballistic missile attack on Tuesday.

Oil prices have risen on the possibility of an attack on Iran's oil facilities as Israel pursues its goals of pushing back Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and eliminating their Hamas allies, also backed by Tehran, in Gaza.

US President Joe Biden on Friday urged Israel to consider alternatives to striking Iranian oil fields, adding that he thinks Israel has not yet concluded how to respond to Iran.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in a rare appearance leading Friday prayers, told a huge crowd in Tehran that Iran and its regional allies would not back down.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi landed in Syria on Saturday for talks after a visit to Lebanon, in which he reiterated support for Lebanon and Hezbollah.

In Hezbollah's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs, many buildings have been reduced to rubble. "We're alive but don't know for how long," said Nouhad Chaib, a 40-year-old man already displaced from the south.

On Friday, Hezbollah fired more than 200 rockets into Israel, according to the Israeli military, and air raid sirens continued to sound in its north on Saturday.

The latest bloodletting in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered by the Palestinian Hamas group's attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 and in which about 250 were taken as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent assault on Gaza has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, and displaced nearly all of Gaza's population.

GROUND OPERATIONS

The Lebanese government has accused Israel of targeting civilians, pointing to dozens of women and children killed. It has not broken its total death toll down between civilians and Hezbollah fighters.

Israel says it targets military capabilities and takes steps to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians. It accuses Hezbollah and Hamas of hiding among civilians, which they deny.

Israel, which began ground operations targeting southern Lebanon this week, says they are focused on villages near the border and has said Beirut "was not on the table", but has not specified how long the ground incursion would last.

It says the operations aim to allow tens of thousands of its citizens to return home after Hezbollah bombardments, which began on Oct. 8, 2023, forced them to evacuate from its north.

Iran's missile salvo was partly in retaliation for Israel's killing of Nasrallah, a dominant figure who had turned the group into a powerful armed and political force with reach across the Middle East.

Axios cited three Israeli officials as saying that Hashem Safieddine, rumored to be Nasrallah's successor, had been targeted in an underground bunker in Beirut on Thursday night, but his fate was not clear.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz posted a photo of Safieddine and Nasrallah on X on Saturday and urged Khamenei to "take your proxies and leave Lebanon."