Israel Kills Palestinian Islamic Jihad Commander in Baalbeck Strike
An Israeli airstrike near the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbeck overnight killed a commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, Wael Mahmoud Abd al-Halim, along with his daughter, Lebanese security sources said. The Israeli military said it had killed the commander and had taken steps to “mitigate the risk of harm to civilians”, making no mention of his daughter. Hezbollah responded by launching an explosive drone at an Iron Dome air defence position in the Galilee region of northern Israel, and the Israeli military said the drone “crossed into Israeli territory”. Lebanon’s National News Agency reported Israeli airstrikes on more than half a dozen further locations in south Lebanon.
The IDF said it had struck more than thirty Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon over the past twenty-four hours and warned residents of three villages in the south to leave their homes. Lebanon’s health ministry put the cumulative civilian death toll since 2 March at 2,988, of whom 613 are women, children and healthcare workers. Israel says eighteen of its soldiers and one defence ministry contractor have been killed by Hezbollah attacks or while operating in southern Lebanon over the same period, with two Israeli civilians killed in the north. On 4 May that several thousand Hezbollah fighters had been killed in the war — a figure the Hezbollah media office disputed. The 45-day ceasefire extension announced after Friday’s third round of US-hosted talks began at midnight, but operationally functions as a low-intensity continuation rather than a halt.