The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed today, in the early evening local time (1640 GMT), that it had launched an airstrike on the southern neighborhoods of Beirut aiming at the Hezbollah commander said to be responsible for the July 27 rocket strike that killed 12 Druze children on a Golan Heights soccer field. In a statement, the Israeli military said it had conducted “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,” reported Reuters. Lebanon’s state-run national news agency said an Israeli airstrike had targeted the area around Hezbollah’s Shura Council in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of the capital.
Minutes after the IDF confirmed the strike, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant put out a statement saying that Hezbollah had “crossed the red line.”
