UPDATE 3 - Death toll from Israeli airstrike on southern Beirut rises to 14

UPDATES WITH NEW TALLY, CHANGES HEADER

By Wassim Seif El Din

BEIRUT (AA) - An Israeli airstrike killed at least 14 people and injured 66 others in Beirut's southern suburb, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.

In a statement, the ministry said hospitals have so far received 66 wounded, including nine in critical condition.

It added that rubble removal operations continue, fearing that more bodies could be found under the rubble.

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

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