Senior Hamas official survives Lebanon strike

Zionist strikes on Lebanon Saturday killed two civilians and a Hezbollah member, officials said, while security sources told AFP a senior Hamas officer had survived an assassination attempt south of Beirut. A Zionist drone strike killed one person and wounded nine others in the southern border village of Hula, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said.

Zionist forces and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, have traded near-daily fire since war broke out on Oct 7 between the Zionist entity and the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip. A source close to Hezbollah told AFP the person killed in Hula was not a member of the group. Hula mayor Shakib Koteish said the fatality was a civilian killed when his home, facing a local mosque, was hit.

While the Zionist-Lebanon violence has been largely contained to the border area, a strike earlier on Saturday hit the coastal town of Jadra, about 40 km from the closest point in the Zionist entity. The second-farthest deadly attack from the border in four months of hostilities “was a failed attempt to assassinate a senior official in the (Hamas) movement”, a Palestinian security said, requesting anonymity for security concerns.

The NNA reported it was a Zionist drone strike. A Lebanese security official, also requesting anonymity, identified the target as Hamas recruitment officer Bassel Saleh. Shortly after the initial strike on Saleh’s car, a second Zionist drone hit the same location, killing two people, the official said. Hezbollah said one of its members had died.

Saleh “survived but suffered burns on his back and was admitted to hospital”, the Lebanese official said. The official added Saleh is “in charge of a recruitment unit in the West Bank”, occupied by the Zionist entity since 1967. A Hamas official in Lebanon told AFP that no member of the group had been killed in the Jadra attack.

An official with the Lebanese Risala Scout association, which operates rescue teams and is affiliated with the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement, told AFP that two civilians had been killed. But Hezbollah later announced one of its members had been killed by Zionist fire. A source close to the group told AFP the man, Khalil Fares, was one of the two people killed in his town of Jadra.

An AFP photographer at the scene saw a damaged car and a charred motorcycle nearby, with bloodstains all over the site of the strike near the beach. On Saturday, the NNA reported several Zionist strikes on south Lebanon villages, with Hezbollah also claiming attacks on Zionist positions across the border. Hezbollah in a statement also said it “took control of a (Zionist) enemy Skylark drone”. — AFP