Israel kills city mayor Ahmad Kahil in strike on council building in southern Lebanon

Nabatieh city mayor Ahmad Kahil was killed with 15 others when Israeli air strikes hit a council building during an air raid the ISD said was targeting Hezbollah.

Israeli air strikes hit the council building in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh. Picture: AFP.

Israeli air strikes hit a municipal building in southern Lebanon, killing the city’s mayor and at least 15 others, according to state media, during an air raid that Israel said was targeting Hezbollah.

Israel said it struck dozens of targets in and around the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh, one of the region’s largest, including weapon storage units and Hezbollah militants. The city’s mayor, Ahmad Kahil, and others were killed, and dozens injured, when the municipal headquarters were hit, according to the state media report. Israel’s military declined to say whether the mayor was the target of the strikes, which were about 8 miles from the Israeli border.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the attack, saying that the strikes hit the municipal building as city officials were meeting to discuss humanitarian response efforts, as the area has faced heavy bombardment in recent weeks.

Israel also renewed its air campaign in Beirut on Wednesday following several days of a lull, hitting the city’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a significant presence. Israeli air strikes on at least two buildings in densely populated areas of central Beirut, the country’s capital, killed 22 people last Thursday. U.S. officials have expressed concerns over Israel’s bombing campaign.

“We have made clear to Israel that we oppose the bombing campaign that they had been launching over recent weeks in Beirut,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday. “We have seen the strikes diminish in recent days and we’ll continue to watch it very carefully.”

The Israeli air strike also targeted the marketplace ofNabatiyeh. Picture: AFP.

Separately, the State Department on Wednesday announced sanctions against three people and four companies for their role in a sanctions evasion network that it says generates revenue for Hezbollah, including the production and distribution of an amphetamine.

More than 2,300 people have been killed in Lebanon since last October, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The figure doesn’t specify how many were combatants. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been displaced in the country of 5.5 million.

Israel stepped up its attacks in Lebanon last month, starting with a series of remote detonations of thousands of electronic devices, and thousands of air strikes in the following weeks, including the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah began striking Israel last October, one day after the Hamas-led attacks in Israel that authorities there say killed about 1,200 people. Tens of thousands of Israelis in the country’s north have been displaced by the Hezbollah attacks. Israel recently added having its residents return to the north as a stated war aim, in addition to destroying Hamas in Gaza.

Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia, has said it would stop its strikes when a ceasefire is reached in Gaza, where more than 42,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities, who don’t say how many were combatants.

Meanwhile in Gaza, Israel allowed aid trucks to enter the northern part of the strip on Wednesday, a rare recent delivery. Israel shut the crossings at the start of October to allow troops to enter the enclave amid a stepped up offensive against Hamas in the north. Israel’s previous prevention of aid trucks into northern Gaza rang alarm bells among aid groups and the White House.

Pressure from the White House sped up Israel’s opening of the crossing Tuesday, a person familiar with the matter said. The Biden administration has urged Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or risk a cut to arms sales, the starkest threat by the U.S. since the war began last year.

In a letter to senior Israeli officials, dated Oct. 13 and signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the U.S. blamed Israel for a drastic drop in humanitarian aid into Gaza that contributed to starvation and widespread suffering, particularly in the enclave’s north.

Israel launched a renewed ground operation nearly two weeks ago amid signs that Hamas was reconstituting there. The top American officials gave Israel 30 days to “reverse the downward humanitarian trajectory” or else it “may have implications” for future weapons transfers and funding under US law.

Dow Jones