Israel kills top Palestinian fighter in missile attack on car in Lebanon

SIDON: The Israeli military killed a senior fighter from Fatah’s armed wing on Wednesday in a strike on Lebanon, leading to accusations from the Palestinian movement that Israel is trying to ignite a regional war.

According to Fatah, an organization located in the West Bank under Israeli occupation, Khalil Maqdah perished in an attack close to Sidon, a city in southern Lebanon. The brother of Mounir Maqdah, the leader of Fatah’s armed wing’s section in Lebanon, was the target, according to the Israeli army.

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In response, Hamas in the Gaza Strip’s rival Fatah, led by Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, said that Israel was attempting to start a bigger conflict. During the more than ten months of cross-border combat between Israel and the Hezbollah movement during the Gaza crisis, Maqdah’s assassination is the first of its kind against a prominent Fatah member.

The “assassination of a Fatah official is further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full-scale war in the region,” Tawfiq Tirawy, a member of Fatah’s central committee, said in Ramallah. The strike came only hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left apparently empty-handed after a tour of the Middle East aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.

Witnesses said that air strikes had once again shook Gaza. An Israeli strike on a classroom converted to a shelter resulted in two fatalities and ten injuries, according to Gaza’s civil defense service.

“A precise strike on Hamas who were operating inside a command and control center” situated in the school premises, according to the Israeli military, was carried out by its air force.

With no route out of Israel’s assault, death “seems to be the only certainty” for Gaza’s 2.4 million residents, according to a UN official. Speaking from Gaza, Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for UNRWA, stated that “absolutely nowhere is safe.”

Hours after four people were murdered in the south, Israeli attacks in the east of the nation left one dead and twenty wounded, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, as tensions increased. Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in cross-border skirmishes nearly every day, but after Hamas’s senior head, Ismail Haniyeh, was murdered on a visit to Tehran on July 31, worries of a more serious crisis increased.

Lebanese officials were advised by Israeli government spokesman David Mencer to “rid themselves” of Hezbollah. Whether or not Lebanon controls Hezbollah, he declared, “Lebanon will be held responsible for the terrorism emanating, originating from its own territory.”