Middle East updates: IDF strikes southern Beirut

A US official said on condition of anonymity that Washington's forces carried out a strike in the south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in self defense. 

"Tonight, US forces in Iraq conducted a defensive airstrike in the Musayyib in Babil Province, targeting combatants attempting to launch one-way attack uncrewed aerial systems," the official said. 

Another official said the strike "underscores the United States' commitment to the safety and security of our personnel."

Some 2,500 US troops are stationed in Iraq. 

The remarks came after explosions were reported at a base for the Popular Mobilization Forces, the Iraqi state-backed paramilitary that includes Iran-aligned armed groups.

It was not immediately clear if the strike was the same as the blasts, which Iraqi officials said killed four people. 

Israel's military has now named the Hezbollah commander it says it targeted with Tuesday's strike on Beirut's southern suburbs.

The IDF said on social media that the attack "killed Fouad Shukur, the most senior military commander in the terrorist organization Hezbollah and the head of the strategic formation of the organization."

This information matched earlier reports citing off-the-record sources from several news outlets.

There had been conflicting early reports on whether or not Shukur survived the attack. Reuters and AFP had initially cited security sources as saying he survived, but later reports in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates said he died.

Shukur, thought to be in his 60s, has been among Hezbollah's most senior military members for decades.

Part of the generation of Lebanese Shiites who founded Hezbollah after Israel's 1982 invasion, he was thought to be close to the group's former commander Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in 2008.

The Rewards For Justice website of the US State Department offers a $5 million (€4.6 million) reward for information leading to Shukur's arrest.

It alleges, among other things, that Shukur "played a central role in the October 23, 1983 bombing of the US Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut which killed 241 US military personnel and wounded 128 others."

Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati "condemned the blatant Israeli aggression on the southern suburbs of Beirut," his office said in a statement released late on Tuesday. 

It referred to the strike as a "criminal act" and part of a "series of aggressive operations killing civilians in clear and explicit violation of international law." 

At least one woman was killed and 68 people were injured in the blast, according to initial estimates from Lebanon's Health Ministry.

The Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said that his government condemned the Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday and intended to file a complaint to the United Nations.

He told the Reuters news agency he hoped any response by Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group whose commander the strike had targeted, would not trigger an escalation.

In Washington, US State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel declined to comment on the strike, saying: "It clearly [only] just happened."

He reiterated, however, that the United States were "continuing to work toward a diplomatic resolution that would allow Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return to their homes and live in peace and security. We certainly want to avoid any kind of escalation."

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported that one woman was killed and several other people injured in an Israeli strike on Beirut  Tuesday evening.

The wounded, some with serious injuries, were taken to nearby hospitals, the report said, adding that it was carried out by a drone that fired three rockets. 

Israel says the strike was aimed at a Hezbollah commander whose condition remains unknown.

Nine Israeli soldiers appeared before a military court on Tuesday accused of sexually abusing a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman military base.

Defense lawyer Nati Rom, who is representing three of the soldiers, described to The Associated Press the soldiers are alleged to have committed as "acts of sodomy," and insisted his clients were innocent.

The investigation into the soldiers, who were detained on Monday, has fueled tensions between the Israeli military and far-right hardliners.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir denounced the soldiers' arrests as "shameful" and called them "our best heroes." Referring to conditions at detention facilities for Palestinian prisoners, he said "the summer camps and patience for the terrorists are over."

On Monday, several hundred protesters broke into the military base where the soldiers were being held. Footage showed them scuffling with guards before being forced out.

Military chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi condemned the protests and said he fully supports the investigation.

"It is precisely these investigations that protect our soldiers in Israel and the world and preserve the values" of the military, he said.

In a separate case, another Israeli reservist was charged with beating, handcuffing and blindfolding detainees with a club or with his weapon as they were being transported between February and June this year.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday evening that "Hezbollah crossed the red line," just minutes after the Israeli military said it targeted a commander of the Iranian-backed group in a suburb of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

The Hezbollah-affiliated television station Al-Manar broadcast images of chaotic scenes in the suburb of Haret Hreik, where at least four buildings were reportedly damaged in the strike.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the targeted commander had been hit.

The last time Israel targeted Beirut was with an airstrike in January, which killed a top Hamas official, Saleh Arouri.

That strike was the first time Israel had hit the city since the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had carried out an airstrike on the city targeting the Hezbollah commander who they said was behind a rocket attack which killed 12 children and teenagers in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights over the weekend.

"The IDF carried out 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," the IDF said in a statement.

The fate of the commander in question remains unclear. 

Lebanon's state-run national news agency said an Israeli strike had targeted the area around Hezbollah's Shura Council in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of Beirut.

Witnesses speaking to news agencies reported a plume of smoke rising above the southern suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday evening moments after a loud blast was heard in the Lebanese capital.

The city's southern suburbs are considered a stronghold of the Iranian-backed militant group, which is designated a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union and others.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised a "severe response" to the weekend's attack, prompting fears of an escalation of the conflict in the region.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has doubled down on claims by health authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip suggesting the spread of the polio virus in the war-torn enclave.

WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told a UN press briefing on Tuesday that people had probably already been infected in Gaza, but that detecting cases can be tricky due to many cases starting off as asymptomatic.  

"Having vaccine-derived polio virus in the sewage very likely means that it's out there somewhere in people," he said. "So the risk of [it]... spreading further is there and it would be a setback."

The Gaza health ministry had announced a "polio epidemic" on Monday, blaming it on the Israeli military operations in the enclave.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's agency, pointed out a drop in polio vaccination rates from 99% to 89% during the almost 10 months of conflict.

He expressed concern regarding vaccines making their way to those who need them, amid the constraints on humanitarian access.

"The mass displacement, the decimation of health infrastructure, the horrendously insecure operating environment, they will make it much, much more difficult [to do vaccinations,] hence putting more and more children at risk," he said.

Israel wrapped up a week-long military offensive in Khan Younis on Tuesday, with thousands of civilians returning to the battered city in southern Gaza. 

Health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave saying around 300 people had been killed.

The offensive was launched on July 22 with the stated aim of stopping rocket fire from Khan Younis.

The Israeli military announced the completion of the operation on Tuesday, saying "150 terrorists" were killed, with tunnels, infrastructure and warehouses destroyed.

Gaza's civil defense forces said in a statement it has recovered the bodies of around 300 dead.

An Israeli man was killed by a rocket fired from Lebanon, Israeli media reported, citing the military.

The military said 10 rockets were fired from Lebanon, with one hitting Kibbutz Hagoshrim in the north, killing one civilian.

Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s national emergency and blood service, said a 30-year-old man was pronounced dead after sustaining shrapnel injuries in the Kiryat Shmona region in northern Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it struck around 10 Hezbollah targets in seven different areas of southern Lebanon.

The IDF also said it "eliminated" a member of the group in the southern village of Bayt Lif. The military struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility, infrastructure sites, military structures and a launcher in southern Lebanon, the IDF said.

Border confrontations between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have been occurring almost daily since the Hamas October 7 attacks on southern Israel prompted the ongoing war in Gaza.

Recently, however, fears have grown regarding an escalation of the conflict. This weekend, 12 teenagers and children were killed in a strike on the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, which Israel blamed on Hezbollah. The group denied responsibility, but Israel has vowed a "harsh" response.

Some 1,200 were killed in Israel during the Hamas October 7 attacks, with the militant group taking around 250 hostages back to Gaza. Around 115 hostages are still there, though Israel says a third of them are believed to be dead.

Meanwhile, over 39,300 Palestinians have been killed so far in the fighting, health authorities in the Hamas-run strip say.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are designated as terrorist groups by several countries.

Israel has struck two Syrian military bases in the outskirts of Deraa, a UK-based monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported no casualties in the overnight strikes.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin does not believe that a confrontation between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was inevitable, though he was still concerned.

Speaking during a joint press conference in Manila, the Philippines, following security talks with Philippine counterparts alongside US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Austin said he wished to see things "resolved in a diplomatic fashion."

"While we've seen a lot of activity on Israel's northern border, we remain concerned about the potential of this escalating into a full-blown fight. And I don't believe that a fight is inevitable," Austin said.