A photo sent to our correspondent in southern Lebanon of the aftermath of the Israeli strike on Naqoura.
After the assassination of Hamas's number two political leader in an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs, did Tel Aviv eliminate a "senior official" of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Wednesday night?
Shortly after a night strike on Naqoura (Sour), rumors that a senior leader of the party, identified as Hussein Yazbek, was among the victims and had been "directly targeted" circulated widely on social networks.
However, Hezbollah denied to L'Orient Today that the strike was intended to assassinate Yazbek. It was not a "targeted assassination," said a spokesperson for the party. "He is a martyr like all the other martyrs, he is a local official [in the town of Naqoura] and not a senior official," they added.
Yazbek's death was announced by Hezbollah in a statement issued shortly after midnight, along with the names of three other party members who were killed with the official: Ibrahim Afif Fahs, from Jibsheet, Hadi Ali Rida, from Teffahta, and Hussein Ali Mohammad Ghazaleh, from Adloun.
According to our count, 147 Hezbollah fighters have been killed since Oct. 8, in Lebanon and Syria. In its statements announcing the deaths of its members "on the road to Jerusalem," Hezbollah does not any information other than their name, nickname and place of origin.
Civilians wounded
According to security sources quoted by our correspondent in southern Lebanon, the strike on Naqoura targeted a three-story house and caused damage to nearby homes. The Civil Defense was mobilized to the scene. In addition to the four victims, a woman and her three daughters were injured in the strike, according to security sources.
The president of the municipality, Abbas Awada, told L'Orient Today that eleven civilians were injured in the strike.
"Only one of them was in a serious condition, but he should be all right," he stated. "The strike was so powerful that it affected several neighborhoods. Many homes were damaged. Some residents decided to leave."
Shortly after the strike was announced, Hanin Ghaddar, a senior researcher at the Washington Institute for Middle East Policy, a think tank close to American conservatives, reported on X (formerly Twitter) that Yazbek was a "senior official" in Hezbollah and that the strike targeted him directly.
Before the party's clarification, and in a message on X, Hadi Nasrallah, an activist close to Hezbollah, had already rejected the idea of an "assassination," explaining that it was a strike "like what they've been doing all along," fighting in which "a commander was killed along with other soldiers."
This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.