Israel Carries Out Targeted Strike Against Hezbollah Stronghold As Tensions Continue To Ratchet Up

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday carried out a retaliatory strike against Hezbollah targets in Beirut, one of the strongholds of the terrorist group in Lebanon.

Hezbollah launched a strike inside the Golan Heights —an Israeli-controlled territory bordering Syria — on Saturday, killing 12 children and prompting promises of revenge from Israeli forces. The IDF confirmed Tuesday that it had launched a strike inside of Beirut, and eye-witness accounts and videos from Beirut depicted explosions and wreckage.

“The IDF carried out a targeted strike in Beirut, on the commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians,” the IDF said in a statement on Tuesday. “At the moment, there are no changes in the Home Front Command defensive guidelines.”

The IDF did not provide further information in the Tuesday statement. An Israeli official told Axios’ Barak Ravid that the intended target was Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah official and a right-hand man to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the terrorist group.

Shukr was behind the Hezbollah strike in the Golan Heights on Sunday, according to the IDF. He also played a key role in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps base in Beirut that killed over 241 servicemembers, according to the State Department.