(CNN) – The Israeli military claims it killed Hezbollah commanders during Friday’s attacks in Lebanon.
“The Israeli Air Force (IAF) targeted and eliminated terrorist Muhammad Ali Ismail, the commander of Hezbollah’s missile unit in southern Lebanon, and his deputy, terrorist Hussein Ahmad Ismail,” the Israel Defense Forces said. (FDI) in the early hours of Saturday, local time.
“Other Hezbollah commanders and operatives were eliminated along with them,” they added.
The IDF said Muhammad Ali Ismail was responsible for directing attacks against Israel, including launching a surface-to-air missile on Wednesday.
Hezbollah has not confirmed the deaths of these figures.
Earlier on Friday, the Israeli Armed Forces said it carried out an airstrike on Hezbollah’s “central headquarters” in Beirut, Lebanon, on Friday, its spokesman said. The target of the attack was the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, an Israeli official told CNN.
Hours later, the IDF reported that it attacked other buildings in the Dahiyeh area of Beirut that it claims store Hezbollah missiles. The group, for its part, denied that its weapons were stored in civilian buildings targeted by Israeli attacks.
“Claims made by the enemy about the presence of weapons in the bombed civilian buildings are completely false,” Hezbollah said in its first official comments on the airstrikes.
At least six people were killed and 91 injured in Israeli airstrikes against the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Lebanese Ministry of Health reported.
The ministry added that this was a preliminary count of victims. Rescuers are still searching through the rubble and the ministry “expects the casualty count to increase in the coming hours.”
State news agency NNA said six buildings were completely destroyed by the Israeli strikes.
CNN has geolocated a video shared on social networks in which large columns of smoke are seen in an area of the southern suburbs of the city known as Dahiyeh.
Dahiyeh is a densely populated area with a strong Hezbollah presence and where many of the group’s leaders are based.
