BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: A senior Hezbollah official eluded an Israeli assassination attempt on Thursday in Beirut, three security sources said, as Israeli strikes there killed 22 people and the UN said its peacekeepers in southern Lebanon were in growing danger.
Wafiq Safa, who heads Hezbollah’s liaison and coordination unit responsible for working with Lebanese security agencies, was targeted by Israel on Thursday night but survived, the security sources said.
Earlier on Thursday, a Lebanese security source told Reuters that Israeli airstrikes on central Beirut targeted at least one senior official in Iran-backed Hezbollah.
The Israeli strikes hit a densely packed residential neighborhood of apartment buildings and small shops in the heart of Beirut. Israel had not previously struck the area, which is removed from Beirut’s southern suburbs where Hezbollah’s headquarters have been repeatedly bombed by Israel.
Israel did not issue evacuation warnings ahead of the strikes on Thursday, which were the deadliest attack on central Beirut since the beginning of the hostilities.
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 searched 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 high-ranking 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 reorganize.
The attempt to kill Safa, whose role merges security and political affairs, marked a widening of Israel’s targets among Hezbollah officials, which previously 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.
