Israel has carried out a deadly air strike on the Lebanese capital of Beirut days after 12 children were killed in an attack which has been blamed on the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised to retaliate for the killings in the occupied Golan Heights region.
It is not known if further Israeli strikes will follow.
There are fears months of skirmishes between Israeli and the Lebanon based Hezbollah, which supports Hamas in Gaza, could topple over into all out war.
Israel said it wanted to send “a very strong message” but war could be avoids dependent on Hezbollah’s response.
Commander possibly killed
Witnesses told AFP they heard a loud bang and saw plumes of smoke rising. Several floors of a building have been destroyed.
A source close to Hezbollah told AFP two people were killed in Tuesday’s Israeli strike on the southern Beirut suburbs which are a stronghold for the group.
“Israel has struck the Beirut southern suburb. Two people were killed in the Israeli strike”, said the source requesting anonymity after earlier saying the target was a “leading commander” of the group.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had targeted the Hezbollah commander behind the Golan Heights rocket attack on the weekend.
That target is thought to be Muhsin Shukr, also known as Fuad Shukr which the IDF has named as the leader of Hezbollah’s precision missile project. The US has also stated that he played a “central role” in s 1983 bombing of a barracks in Beirut that killed 241 US military personnel.
Reuters has reported sourced that have said Shukr survived. But Saudi news outlets shave said he did indeed die and his body is in a Beirut hospital, reported the Times of Israel.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said “an enemy raid targeted near Hezbollah’s Shura Council,” the powerful Lebanese group’s decision-making body in Beirut’s Haret Hreik suburb.
The country’s foreign minister Abdallah Bouhabib urged Hezbollah’s response to be “proportionate” to avoid an escalation.
On Saturday, a strike on the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights killed 12 children. It was blamed by Israel and the United States on Hezbollah, although the Iran-backed group has denied any connection to the attack.
During a visit on Monday to Majdal Shams, Mr Netanyahu vowed a “severe response”, raising fears yet again that the Gaza war could spill over into a wider regional conflagration.
The US and other nations had been pushing Israel to moderate its response including potentially not hitting bustling Beirut, avoiding the city’s airport, port and not targeting other major Lebanese infrastructure such as power stations and highways.
Speaking on Tuesday in Washington DC, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden “believes (war) can be avoided”.
“We have to continue to be optimistic here, I think it’s important to have a diplomatic solution. We do not want to see an escalation, we do not want to see an all-out war.”
