A senior Hezbollah official narrowly escaped an Israeli assassination attempt in Beirut on Thursday, according to three security sources.
The official, Wafiq Safa, who heads Hezbollah’s liaison and coordination unit with Lebanese security agencies, was targeted by Israel but survived the attack, the sources confirmed.
The attempted assassination occurred amid intensified Israeli airstrikes that killed 22 people in Beirut.
Earlier that day, a Lebanese security source informed Reuters that the strikes were aimed at a senior Hezbollah official in the Iran-backed group.
The Israeli airstrikes struck a densely populated residential area in central Beirut, marking the first time Israel had targeted this part of the city.
Previously, Israeli bombings have focused on Hezbollah’s strongholds in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
The U.N. also warned that its peacekeeping forces stationed in southern Lebanon were facing increasing risks as the violence escalated.
The number of casualties rose quickly, and as midnight approached the Lebanese Health Ministry reported 22 people killed and 117 wounded. Among the dead was a family of eight, including three children, who had evacuated from the south, according to a security source.
Reuters witnesses said at least one strike hit near a gas station and a thick column of smoke was visible. A large fire blazed in the background as rescue workers used torches to search the rubble for survivors, according to video broadcast by Hezbollah’s al-Manar television.
There was no immediate comment on the incident by Israel.
After Israel killed a series of top Hezbollah officials in recent weeks, including top leader Hassan Nasrallah, Safa was among the few surviving senior figures as the group’s upper echelons struggled to reorganise.
The attempt to kill Safa, whose role merges security and political affairs, marked a widening of targeting of Hezbollah officials by Israel, which had so far focused on the group’s military commanders and top leaders.
Safa, whom Middle East media reports said was born in 1960, oversaw negotiations that led to a 2008 deal in which Hezbollah exchanged the bodies of Israeli soldiers captured in 2006 for Lebanese prisoners in Israel. The 2006 incident triggered a 34-day war with Israel.
Reuters also reported that in 2021 Safa warned the judge investigating Beirut’s catastrophic 2020 port explosion, who sought to question several politicians allied with Hezbollah, that Hezbollah would remove him from the probe .
The Israeli military issued a new evacuation warning on Thursday night for Beirut’s southern suburbs including specific buildings. Earlier in the day, Israel warned Lebanese civilians not to return to homes in the south to avoid harm from fighting.
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