UPDATE 2 - Israeli airstrike kills 12 in southern Beirut suburb: Lebanese Health Ministry

UPDATES WITH NEW TALLY, ISRAELI STATEMENT; CHANGES HEAD, DECK

By Wassim Seif El Din

BEIRUT (AA) — An Israeli airstrike killed at least 12 people in Beirut's Southern Suburb region, injuring dozens of others, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.

The ministry added that hospitals have so far received 66 wounded, including nine in critical condition.

The official Lebanese National News Agency said the strike hit an apartment in one of the residential buildings of the Jamous area in the Southern Suburb.

Ambulances and civil defense teams rushed to the area and transferred several of the injured to the hospital.

Following the airstrike, a senior Israeli official told Israeli Army Radio that the target was Ibrahim Aqil, a top military commander of the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Later, the army claimed that it assassinated Aqil, along with senior commanders from the group's elite Radwan Force.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the raid "proves again that the Israeli enemy does not value any human, legal or moral considerations, and is going on in what looks like a genocide."

According to an Anadolu correspondent on the ground, the Israeli strike severely damaged buildings in southern Beirut.

Hezbollah is yet to comment on the airstrike, which came amid an escalation in cross-border warfare with Israel since the start of Tel Aviv's deadly war on the Gaza Strip, where nearly 41,300 people, mostly women and children, were killed following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara