The Israeli military said on Thursday that it had killed a senior Hezbollah commander in a strike in Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs a day earlier, the first attack near the Lebanese capital since a U.S.-mediated cease-fire took effect last month.<\/p>\n
The attack, which risked further destabilizing an already tenuous truce, targeted the commander of Hezbollah\u2019s Radwan force, the group\u2019s elite commando unit, the Israeli military said. Hezbollah has not yet commented on the strike, which hit an apartment building in the Dahiya, the densely populated residential and commercial area where the Iran-backed group holds sway.<\/p>\n
Despite the declared cease-fire, Israel and Hezbollah have continued to exchange daily attacks<\/a> in southern Lebanon<\/a>. Every escalation raises the specter that the truce, which sharply reduced the scale of fighting, will collapse and full-fledged war will return.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is how we act, and this is how we will continue to act,\u201d Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the country\u2019s defense minister, Israel Katz, said in a joint statement on Wednesday announcing the strike.<\/p>\n The Trump administration pushed for the cease-fire<\/a> in Lebanon to preserve a fragile diplomatic track with Iran<\/a>, Hezbollah\u2019s main backer.<\/p>\n The timing of the strike near Beirut was especially delicate. Envoys from Israel and Lebanon, whose government does not control Hezbollah, are scheduled to hold another round of U.S.-brokered talks in Washington next Thursday and Friday, according to the State Department, as the Trump administration attempts to turn the cease-fire into a more durable arrangement.<\/p>\n The attack also came amid signs that diplomacy between the United States and Iran could be gaining momentum, with Tehran reviewing an American proposal to end the war. A renewed escalation in Lebanon could complicate that effort, given Iran\u2019s demands for an end to Israeli strikes there. Kan, Israel\u2019s public broadcaster, reported that the strike in Lebanon had been coordinated with the United States.<\/p>\n Until Wednesday, Beirut and its southern suburbs had been spared Israeli attacks since April 8, when Israel unleashed a devastating wave of strikes<\/a> across the country, including on the Lebanese capital. Those attacks killed more than 350 people, according to the Lebanese authorities, making it the deadliest single day of the latest in a series of wars between Israel and Hezbollah.<\/p>\n That war erupted in March, when Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel, days after the U.S.-Israeli offensive against Iran began. Israel answered Hezbollah\u2019s attacks with a large-scale bombing campaign in Lebanon and a ground invasion of the country\u2019s south, where its forces still control a broad area of territory.<\/p>\n More than 2,700 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the country\u2019s health ministry, and at its peak, the fighting displaced more than a million others, about a fifth of Lebanon\u2019s population.<\/p>\n Israel has reported 18 military personnel and two civilians killed, and the continued firing has kept northern Israel on edge and left Mr. Netanyahu under pressure at home<\/a> to show that the war has restored security along the border. Israel says its six-mile-deep \u201cforward defense line\u201d in Lebanon is needed to protect its northern communities, but Hezbollah has cited the continued occupation to justify attacks on Israeli forces during the cease-fire.<\/p>\n