Hezbollah targets base near Haifa after Israeli strike in Beirut killed 37, including top commander

(AP)

Explosions lit up the night sky in southern Lebanon on Saturday as tensions escalated between Hezbollah and Israel. On Friday, an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut apartment block killed a senior Hezbollah leader and about a dozen other members of the militant group, Israel’s military said Saturday as Lebanon raised the attack’s death toll to 37, including women and children.

Lebanon’s health minister said on Saturday the death toll from an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb the day before has risen to 31, including seven women and three children. The casualties included Ibrahim Akil, a Hezbollah commander, who was in charge of the group’s elite Radwan Force.

Smoke was seen rising in northern Israel and southern Lebanon on Saturday as tensions between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah increased. Lebanon’s interior minister has called the security situation in Lebanon “dangerous and critical” while speaking to media in Beirut.

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