Israel announced on Tuesday that a strike it carried out near Beirut the day before killed a member of Iran's Quds Force, who a Lebanese security source said had survived a previous attack in the same area.
On Monday Israel struck an apartment in Hazmieh, an upscale town overlooking Beirut and near the presidential palace and diplomatic missions.
In a statement Tuesday, the Israeli army said it had killed Mohammed Ali Kurani, "a Quds Force terrorist who was advancing terror attacks directed by Iranian intelligence officials".
The Quds Force is the foreign operations arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
A Lebanese security source told AFP that Kurani hailed from Nabatieh governorate in south Lebanon, and was "known by his military alias Haj Sadeq".
The source said he was a "security officer" in the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, and by virtue of his position, would likely have been coordinating with the Quds Force.
Kurani survived an earlier March 4 strike on a hotel, also in Hazmieh, with the source saying "a recording that night documented his leaving the hotel with his wife and son".
The strike hit the room where he and his family had stayed for just two hours, and resulted in injuries to a receptionist who later died of her wounds.
Monday's strike targeted a room in an apartment that had been rented in his wife's name since last October, the source added, noting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and his sister own two units in the same building.
Lebanon was dragged into the Middle East war on March 2 when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for US-Israeli attacks that killed Iran's supreme leader.
Following Monday's strike, Hazmieh Mayor Jean Asmar announced the municipality would take new measures with regards to hosting people displaced by the war "so that this incident is not repeated".
