Israeli strikes kill Hamas leader in Lebanon and three Palestinian leaders in Beirut

Monday, September 30, 2024 - Palestinian militant group, Hamas has announced that its leader in Lebanon has been killed by Israeli air strikes as hundreds of IDF tanks line up along the border.

Hamas said its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin was killed, along with his wife, son, and daughter, in a strike that targeted their house in a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern city of Tyre in the early hours of Monday.

This is coming days after Hezbollah's long-standing chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed in Beirut.

The group said al-Amine was killed with his wife, son, and daughter in what it called a 'terrorist and criminal assassination'.

That statement came hours after the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a secular left-wing group, said three of its members were killed in a strike in Beirut's Kola district early today.

Most of Israel's attacks against Hezbollah have so far been carried out in the south of Lebanon or Beirut's southern suburbs.

But this morning's attack in the Kola district was the first within Beirut's city limits - another escalation that observers fear could trigger a wider war, dragging in Iran and the United States.

Meanwhile, the US and other members of the international community this weekend issued an 11th-hour appeal for restraint.

President Joe Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that an all-out war in the Middle East must be avoided, even as the US military ramps up its presence in the region.

More than 1,030 people - including 156 women and 87 children - have been killed in less than two weeks, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry, since Israel stepped up its attacks on Hezbollah.

The airstrike in the Kola district hit a multistory residential building and caused massive damage.

Israel has repeatedly targeted both Hezbollah and Hamas officials in Lebanon since the Gaza war erupted almost a year ago.

Israel has vowed to keep up the assault and says it wants to make its northern areas secure again for residents who have been forced to flee Hezbollah rocket attacks.