Sept. 21 (UPI) — The death toll from Israel’s airstrike on the southern Beirut stronghold of the Lebanese Islamic militant group Hezbollah has risen to 37, the country’s top health official said Saturday.
Three children, seven women and three Syrian nationals were among the 37 killed when when Israeli jets bombed the neighborhood on Friday, acting Minister of Public Health Firas Abiad told reporters during a briefing in Beirut.
Some 68 people were wounded in the strike, including 15 who remained hospitalized in critical condition, he said.
The target of the raid was a meeting of military commanders who lead Hezbollah’s Al-Radwan special operations force.
The Shia militant group confirmed Friday that among the dead were senior commander Ibrahim Aqil, who was accused by U.S. officials as one of leaders and planners of the April 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 people, and the October 1983 U.S. Marine barracks, which killed 241 U.S. personnel.
Another top commander, Ahmed Wahbi, also died in the strike.
The strike came a day after Hezbollah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said Israel crossed “all the red lines” by detonating thousands of communication devices used by his group’s members earlier this week, killing dozens of people, including two children, and wounding nearly 3,000 others.
Nasrallah vowed to punish Israel for the pager and walkie-talkie explosions that hit various Lebanese regions. The militants retaliated by launching a new barrage of missiles targeting military and intelligence bases in northern Israel.
Abiad said Saturday the combined death toll between the communications device explosions and the Friday airstrike rose to 70 while 777 remained hospitalized from the walkie-talkie attacks.
He denounced both attacks as war crimes, noting the airstrike caused a building to collapse onto the heads of civilians.
“International law stipulates the principle of protecting civilians from the effects of conflicts according to Article 48,” he said. “The law also stresses the necessity for parties to the conflict to take all precautions to avoid harming civilians and to differentiate between civilians and combatants in military operations, otherwise these parties will be considered in violation of international law.”
The IDF on Saturday said about 180 targets and thousands of rocket launchers controlled by the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah were in a series of raids targeting “thousands of missile launchers that were ready to be launched immediately towards Israeli territory.”
The IDF also said it had shelled some areas in southern Lebanon with artillery.
