Top Hezbollah commander was in building targeted by Israel but fate unknown

The fate of Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr remains shrouded in mystery following an assassination attempt late Tuesday in an Israeli drone strike on a building in a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut.

The strike was reported in the vicinity of the Hezbollah Shura Council’s headquarters in Haret Hreik, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The country’s Health Ministry said a woman was killed and at least 68 others were injured in the attack.

Hezbollah's long-awaited statement on Wednesday said Israel had attacked a residential building in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold for the group, and that "a number of citizens" had been killed and others wounded.

It said Fuad Shukr "was present in this building at the time," but that the group was still waiting for definitive results on his fate.

This marks the second Israeli attack on a southern suburb of Beirut since January 2, when Israel assassinated Saleh al Arouri, a senior official of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

While Israel’s Channel 14 claimed the targeted leader in the latest strike was Shukr, Channel 12 said ther e is no confirmation yet of the success of the assassination operation carried out by the Israeli army.

The attack comes amid a potential escalation between the Israeli army and Hezbollah following the killing of 12 children, predominantly from the Druze community, and the injury of others Saturday due to a missile strike on a football field in the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights.

Israel accused Hezbollah of being behind the incident and vowed retaliation, while the group categorically denied any responsibility.

Hezbollah leader

Shukr, 62, also known as Al Hajj Mohsen, was born in the city of Nabatieh in Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, according to the US government’s Rewards for Justice website.

Washington had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information on Shukr, whom they described as a “senior military advisor to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.”

Shukr operates within Hezbollah’s highest military body—the Jihad Council. He has assisted Hezbollah fighters and pro-Syrian government forces in the group’s military campaign against Syrian opposition forces in Syria, according to the same source.

He played a pivotal role in the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut which killed 241 American military personnel and injured 128 others.

In 2019, the US State Department designated Shukr as a terrorist for his work on behalf of Hezbollah.

Fears have grown about a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah amid an exchange of cross-border attacks between the two sides.

The escalation comes against the backdrop of a deadly Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which has killed more than 39,300 people since last October, following an attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.