Israeli airstrike on Palestinian camp in north Lebanon kills 4, including Hamas leader

Israeli airstrikes targeted the fifth floor of a residential building in a Palestinian camp in northern Tripoli in the early hours Saturday, killing Hamas leader Saeed Atallah Ali along with his wife and two children. Ali was a leader in the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing.

This aerial attack marks the first Israeli strike on the Northern Lebanon Governorate since the Occupation military began its bombing campaigns across various areas of Lebanon, following Hezbollah's announcement on October 8 last year that it would launch rocket attacks on Israel in support of Gaza.

Ali’s assassination marks the latest incident in a series of Israeli operations targeting Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon and Gaza, resulting in mass fatalities.

An eyewitness in the Beddawi camp in Lebanon who spoke Mada Masr on condition of anonymity said that the Occupation drones did not leave the skies of Tripoli for days and that they were flying at low altitudes.

He said that the sound of the reconnaissance planes was very loud in the area until he heard the sound of a very large explosion at dawn, which caused a great deal of panic in the camp. The eyewitness added that he and some residents rushed to the targeted location, where he later learned that the targeted apartment belonged to a Hamas leader who was martyred along with his family. 

The witness added that some people surrounded the place with the civil defense teams to help put out the fire, but that the civil defense prevented them from approaching the site.

Hamas confirmed the martyrdom of Ali and his wife and children by Israeli forces in a statement on Saturday morning, saying he was killed in the “bombardment of his house in the Beddawi camp.”

Protests broke out shortly afterward in the camp, according to a video footage reviewed by Mada Masr, with people chanting for the assassinated Hamas commander.

In the aftermath of the bombing, the Palestinian security committee in the camp fired gunshots in the air to disperse crowds who had gathered nearby, make space for ambulances to transport the bodies and injured to hospitals, and for firefighters to put out the fire in the targeted residential building.

Accounts of the incident on social media described a drone hovering overhead for hours in the wake of the attack.

The Israeli offensive on the Tripoli camp led to the displacement of many of its residents, as they feared more attacks on the area.

Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the strike near the port city of Tripoli.

Israeli air raids earlier this week also targeted the crowded residential area of Ain al-Helwe camp in Lebanon’s South Governorate in an attempt to assassinate Mounir Maqdeh, the leader of Fatah’s military wing, the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The airstrike killed at least six people, including Hassan Maqdeh, the leader’s son, and at least two children, according to the National News Agency.

An earlier airstrike on the capital targeted several members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Zahi Yasser Abdel Razeq Oufi, another Hamas commander, was also killed on Friday in the first Israeli airstrike on Tulkarm’s Hamam neighborhood in the West Bank since the Second Intifada. At the time, a medical source told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity that Oufi was considered the leader of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, in the camp.

Israel launched a ground incursion on southern Lebanon last week, with the army ordering residents of nearly 37 villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate on Friday. Heavy airstrikes target Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, nightly.

Hezbollah forces continue to push back against Israeli forces at the border after Israel announced its intention on Monday to launch a ground invasion into southern Lebanese territory.

According to the Lebanese Public Health Ministry’s latest count, Israeli airstrikes killed 37 and injured 151 others on Friday alone, amid the targeting of areas in southern Lebanon, Nabatieh, Bakka, Baalbek-Hermel, Mount Lebanon and Beirut.