Israel said it killed a commander of the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Friday in a strike in the Lebanese port city of Sidon that also killed his adult son and daughter.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam condemned the strike as a “flagrant attack on Lebanese sovereignty” and a breach of the November 27 ceasefire with Israel.
“Overnight, the (army and the domestic security agency Shin Bet) conducted a targeted strike in the Sidon area, eliminating the terrorist Hassan Farhat, commander of Hamas’s western arena in Lebanon,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
It alleged that Farhat had orchestrated multiple attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians during the hostilities that followed the outbreak of war in Gaza in October 2023.
They included rocket fire on the Israeli town of Safed on February 14, 2024, that killed an Israeli soldier, the military added.
The strike on a flat in a residential area of Sidon killed the official and his adult son and daughter, a Palestinian official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
An AFP correspondent saw the fourth-floor flat still on fire after the strike, which caused heavy damage to the apartment block and neighbouring buildings and sparked panic in the densely populated neighbourhood.
Lebanese state media had reported the 3:45 am (0045 GMT) strike on Sidon, saying at least three people were killed.
“A hostile drone raided a residential apartment… causing two successive explosions that led to a fire and extensive damage,” the state-run National News Agency reported.
Emergency workers rushed to the scene where they recovered “the bodies of three martyrs,” NNA said.