Source close to Hezbollah says Israeli strike hits southern Beirut suburb

BEIRUT (AFP): A source close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah told AFP an Israeli strike hit its stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs, days after Israel said it would retaliate over a deadly attack on the annexed Golan Heights blamed on the group.

“Israel has struck the Beirut southern suburb,” the source said, requesting anonymity, with witnesses telling AFP they heard a loud bang and saw plumes of smoke rising.

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.

An AFP photographer on the ground said the last floor of an eight-storey building was hit and that ambulances had converged at the site of the strike.

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 Lebanon’s Hezbollah, although the Iran-backed group has denied any connection to the attack.

During a visit on Monday to Majdal Shams, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed a “severe response”, raising fears yet again that the Gaza war could spill over into a wider regional conflagration.