Israel kills Hamas 'commander' in strike on Sidon

The Israeli military said it killed a commander of Palestinian militant group Hamas in a pre-dawn strike on the Lebanese port city of Sidon on Friday.

"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 military said in a statement.

The strike also killed Farhat's adult son and daughter.

Hamas’s military wing the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement that commander Hassan Farhat had been killed "inside his apartment in the city of Sidon, southern Lebanon, along with his martyred daughter Jinan Hassan Farhat, and his son" Hamza, also a member of the Palestinian group’s military wing.

The Israeli military 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.

An AFP correspondent saw the fourth-floor flat still on fire after the strike, which caused heavy damage to the apartment block and neighboring buildings and sparked panic in the densely populated neighborhood.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam condemned the strike as a "flagrant attack on Lebanese sovereignty" and a breach of the November 27 ceasefire in the war between militant group Hezbollah and Israel.

Hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah spiraled into all-out conflict last September, and the group remains a target of Israeli air strikes despite the ceasefire.

Under the truce, Hezbollah is supposed to redeploy its forces north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.

Israel is supposed to withdraw its forces across the UN-demarcated Blue Line, the de facto border, but has missed two deadlines to do so and continues to hold five positions it deems "strategic".