A plume of smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike on the eastern outskirts of Tyre, in southern Lebanon, on March 24, 2026. Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when Iran-backed Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader. Israel has since launched strikes across Lebanon, killing at least 1,039 people and displacing more than a million others, and sent ground troops into the country's south. (Photo by Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP)
Two sources told our correspondent that Israel killed a high-ranking Hezbollah commander today in a strike in Beirut that Lebanon’s health ministry stated killed seven people. Israel is going after the group’s leaders.
According to a Lebanese security source and a Hezbollah source, the commander Youssef Hashem was in charge of the group’s military operations in Iraq and was in a tent meeting when Israel attacked, AFP says.
The Israeli military reported that Hashem was in charge of Hezbollah’s southern Lebanon front.
In early March, the Tehran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel to get back at the US-Israeli attack that killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This brought Lebanon into the Middle East war. Israel has attacked Lebanon with huge airstrikes and ground troops.
A source close to Hezbollah said that Hashem is “the highest-ranking official to be targeted since the start of the war.”
The group reported that another Hezbollah member, Mohammad Baqir al-Naboulsi, was also killed in the hit on the Jnah suburb of Beirut.
“Sleeping Outside”
On Wednesday, people all throughout the city heard several loud explosions and saw a plume of smoke coming from Jnah, which has stores, cafes, and apartment buildings.
Hassan Jalwan, who lives close, told our reporter that he heard “big explosions” last night.
He remarked, “Nobody knows what’s going on,” and added that “displaced people have been sleeping outside” all over the neighborhood.
The violence has forced more than a million people to leave their homes, according to the Lebanese government.
The health ministry reported that a previous attack on a car in Khaldeh, which is just south of the capital, killed two more people and hurt three more.
Our reporter in the area spotted a burned car and paramedics transporting a hurt individual away on a stretcher.
The Lebanese official media also said that there was a strike early today in the Hadath district, which is near the southern suburbs of Beirut. This area has mostly emptied out because of numerous Israeli strikes.
State media stated that Israeli fire and aircraft also impacted the south and east of Lebanon.
Army Moves
Israel has declared it wants to take back a large area of Lebanon near the border in the south to create a “buffer zone” to keep Hezbollah at bay. Israel has already been in charge of southern Lebanon for around twenty years, until 2000.
Israel Katz, the defense minister, announced Wednesday that “all the houses in the villages next to the border in Lebanon will be torn down.”
Katz’s Lebanese counterpart, Michel Menassa, spoke out against the plans, while Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney termed them a “illegal invasion.”
The Lebanese army said today that it was moving and redeploying troops in the south because Israeli aggression had gotten worse.
A source in the Lebanese military told our reporter that the army had pulled out of some towns in the south but stayed in others.
The insider said, “We leave when there is an Israeli incursion or advance.”
“Because… there is a chance that the Lebanese army will be directly targeted… and even if there isn’t, there is a chance that the army will be surrounded.”
The insider added that in certain instances, the Israelis had moved up to 10 kilometers.
Hezbollah reported this morning that its militants were involved in “fierce clashes” with soldiers in the Lebanese town of Shamaa, which is just five kilometers (three miles) from the border. It also alleged that it was responsible for firing rockets at a group of Israeli soldiers in a another region.
According to the Israeli military’s Home Front Command, air raid sirens went off across northern Israel’s Galilee region late last night. This was hours after Israeli media reported that Hezbollah had fired more than 40 rockets toward Israel.
In the last few days, Israel’s military has claimed that several of its soldiers had died in southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese government says that the war has killed more than 1,200 people so far.
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