Another high-ranking Hezbollah commander killed by Israeli airstrike as conflict escalates

The Israeli military said Sunday that it killed another high-ranking Hezbollah official in an airstrike as the terrorist group in Lebanon reels from a string of devastating blows and the killing of its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The Israel Defense Forces said it killed Nabil Kaouk, the deputy head of Hezbollah’s Central County, in an airstrike on Saturday. Hezbollah confirmed his death, making him the seventh senior Hezbollah leader slain in Israeli strikes in a little over a week. They include founding members who had evaded death or detention for decades.

Kaouk was a veteran member of Hezbollah going back to the 1980s and served as Hezbollah’s military commander in southern Lebanon during the 2006 war with Israel. He often appeared in local media, where he would comment on politics and security developments, and he gave eulogies at the funerals of senior militants. The United States had announced sanctions against him in 2020.

The announcement of Kaouk’s death came a day after the Israeli military said it killed Nasrallah in an afternoon airstrike on Friday in Beirut. The IDF said it targeted the group’s “central headquarters,” which were “embedded under a residential building” in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

On Sunday, Hezbollah confirmed that among those killed in Friday’s airstrike was also Ali Karaki, one of the group’s senior commanders.

The Iran-backed group confirmed its longtime leader “has joined his fellow martyrs.”

Several senior Hezbollah commanders have been killed in Israeli strikes in recent weeks, including founding members of the group who have evaded death or detention for decades. The U.S. designated terrorist group was also targeted by a sophisticated attack on its pages and walkie-talkies that was widely blamed on Israel.

A wave of Israeli airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon has killed more than 1,000 people – including 156 women and 87 children – in fewer than two weeks, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets and missiles into northern Israel, but most have been intercepted or fallen in open areas, causing few casualties and only scattered damage.

Biden: Regional conflict “has to be avoided”

President Biden on Sunday said he would speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and believes that an all-out war in the Middle East must be avoided.

“It has to be,” Mr. Biden told reporters as he boarded Air Force One for Washington. “We really have to avoid it.”

He would not say when he planned to speak with Netanyahu.

On Saturday, the president said Nasrallah‘s death in the Israeli airstrike was a “measure of justice,” for his many victims.

In a statement released by the White House, Mr. Biden said “Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror,” including thousands of Israelis and Lebanese civilians.

When asked by reporters Saturday if an Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon was inevitable, Mr. Biden responded, “it’s time for a cease-fire.”

Thousands of people in shelters after strikes

A Lebanese cabinet minister spearheading the country’s emergency response said that the government estimates about 250,000 people have left their homes and taken refuge in government-run shelters and informal ones.

Environment Minister Nasser Yassin told the Associated Press that the total number is about “four times as many directly affected and/or displaced outside the shelters.”

The United Nations said that as of Friday, 211,319 people were forced to relocate, and that was before some intensive Israeli airstrikes over Beirut’s southern suburbs in recent days.

The Lebanese government has converted schools and other facilities into temporary shelters. Still, many are sleeping on the streets or in public squares, as the government and non-governmental organizations try to find them places to stay.

Fighting escalates as airstrikes continue

Amid the escalation from Israel — who is said to be sending ground troops to the border with Lebanon for a possible limited ground incursion next week, according to a U.S. official — Lebanon’s military called for calm among the Lebanese “at this dangerous and delicate stage.”

Government officials fear that the country’s deep political divisions at a time of war could rekindle sectarian strife and violence in the small Mediterranean country.

“The Israeli enemy is working to implement its destructive plans and spread division among the Lebanese,” the military said.

Military vehicles have been deployed in different parts of the capital as thousands of displaced people continue moving from the south to Beirut.

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s state news agency said an Israeli airstrike early Sunday destroyed a home in the northeast village of al-Ain, killing 11 people. Six of the bodies were recovered from under the rubble as the search continued for the remaining five, National News Agency reported.

The consecutive strikes Sunday on Ain el-Delb, east of Sidon, were caught on camera by neighbors in the area. The Health Ministry said the strikes also injured at least 29 people.

Separately, the Health Ministry said Israeli strikes in the northern province of Baalbek Hermel killed 21 people and injured at least 47.

In southern Lebanon, the Islamic Risala Scout Association said five of its members were killed while performing their duties. It said four of the men killed were from the southern village of Tayr Debba while the fifth was from nearby Kabrikha.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. Hezbollah and Hamas are allies that consider themselves part of an Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance” against Israel.

Israel has responded with waves of airstrikes, and the conflict has steadily ratcheted up to the brink of all-out war, raising fears of a region-wide conflagration.

A senior Israeli official said Friday that Israel was not seeking a broader regional war but that Hezbollah’s military capabilities had been meaningfully degraded by the recent series of Israeli military operations and that the objective of the strike was to leave Hezbollah with a significant leadership gap.

Israel hits Houthi targets in Yemen

Israel’s military said dozens of aircraft have struck Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the militants’ recent attacks on Israel.

The military says it targeted power plants and sea port facilities in the city of Hodeida.

The Houthi media office said the Israeli strikes hit the Hodeida and Rass Issa ports along with two power plants in Hodeida city, which is a stronghold for the Iranian-backed rebels. Fire and plumes of smoke could be seen in the air over Hodeida after the strikes.

The group said it had taken precautionary measures and Israel’s strikes would not stop Houthi attacks on shipping routes and on Israel.

The Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Saturday as Netanyahu was arriving on a flight from the United States.