At least two people have been killed and 76 injured in a series of Israeli air strikes in Lebanon’s capital Beirut on Friday. Several buildings were hit in the massive attack in Dahieh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in the south of the city. The Israeli military said the target of its strike was Hezbollah’s central headquarters located "under residential buildings".
The attack that shook the Lebanese capital and sent thick clouds of smoke over the city was targeted at Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah, according to Israeli and US media reports. However, it was too early to say if Nasrallah was hit in the attack, an Israeli official told news agency Reuters.
The news outlet Axios cited an Israeli source as saying that the Israeli military was checking if Nasrallah was hit in the strike. However, a source close to Hezbollah told Reuters that Nasrallah was alive. Iran's Tasnim news agency also reported that the Hezbollah commander was safe. Quoting a senior Iranian security official, Reuters reported that Tehran was checking Nasrallah's status.
US Denied Having Prior Knowledge Of Attack
Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said that Washington did not have any advanced warning of Israel's strikes in Beirut. But he spoke to his Israeli counterpart as the operation was already underway, a Pentagon spokesperson said on Friday.
"The United States was not involved in this operation and we had no advanced warning," spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters. She declined to say what Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Austin about the operation and whether it targeted the Iran-backed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The Pentagon also declined to speculate on whether Nasrallah was still alive.
Asked what he may have communicated to Gallant given the Israeli strike's potential impact on US efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Sabrina Singh declined to offer specifics, but she said the defence secretary is always frank in his conversations with his Israeli counterpart.
"Look at just the engagements that the secretary and Minister Gallant have had over the last two weeks, speaking regularly. I think if there was any type of fracture in trust, you wouldn't see those type of levels of calls and engagements occurring frequently," Singh said when asked if the lack of advance notification by Israel indicated a lack of trust.
Biden Administration's Call For De-escalation
The Biden administration has been seeking to contain the crisis from spiralling further, with Austin publicly warning that an all-out conflict between Israel and Hezbollah would be devastating. On Thursday, he warned that risk existed but added a diplomatic solution was still viable.
"We now face the risk of an all-out war. Another full-scale war (could) be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon," Austin told reporters on Thursday.