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The Israeli Defense Forces targeted Hezbollah leader Hassan Hasrallah in a “precise strike” Friday on the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut, Lebanon. 

IDF spokesperson Rear admiral Daniel Hagari said the headquarters were intentionally built in the heart of the Dahieh in Beirut under residential buildings “as part of Hezbollah’s strategy of using Lebanese people as human shields.”

Video and images show plumes of smoke rising over Beirut following the Israeli strikes. Witnesses say they heard multiple strikes. It is unclear if Nasrallah was struck. 

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Hezbollah’s al-Manar television reported that four buildings were destroyed and there were many casualties in the multiple strikes, which marked an escalation of Israel’s conflict with the heavily armed, Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Security sources in Lebanon said the attack targeted an area where top Hezbollah officials are usually based. It was the heaviest attack in Beirut in almost a year of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.

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“On Oct. 8, Hezbollah started attacking Israel after almost a year of Hezbollah firing rockets, missiles and suicide drones at Israeli civilians,” Hagari said.

“After almost a year of Israel warning the world and telling them that Hezbollah must be stopped, Israel is doing what every sovereign state in the world would do if they had a terror organization that seeks their destruction on their border, taking the necessary action to protect our people so that Israeli families can leave their homes safely and securely.”

Fox News has learned the target of the attack was Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, pictured in a televised speech in January. (REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir)

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh says the U.S. was not involved in this operation and had no advance warning.

“Minister [Yoav] Gallant spoke with Secretary Austin as the operation was already underway,” Singh said. “This operation has happened within the last few hours. We are still assessing the event.”

The Pentagon also declined to speculate on whether the Hezbollah leader was still alive.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approving the strikes on Friday from a hotel in New York. (Fox News)

A White House official says that President Biden has been briefed on the operation.

The strikes hit Beirut shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue Israel’s attacks on Iranian-backed fighters in Lebanon in a closely watched United Nations speech, as hopes faded for a cease-fire that could head off an all-out regional war.

A car sits in a huge hole at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs (The Associated Press)

Netanyahu will cut short his stay in the U.S. and will depart for Israel Friday, Fox News sources say. This is understood to be a rare move by an Israeli prime minister, as Shabbat is a day of rest for Jews. 

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The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has drastically escalated over the last month as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has begun targeting the terrorist network’s hot spots and military storage units, all of which are strategically embedded within civilian villages.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Israel says the attack targeted ‘the central headquarters’ of Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital.

Israel has carried out several air raids in Lebanon’s capital Beirut that it said targeted the headquarters of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

The series of massive explosions sent huge clouds of smoke soaring above the densely populated Haret Hreik neighbourhood in Dahiyeh, southern Beirut, around dusk on Friday.

The Israeli military said the attack targeted the Iran-aligned group’s “central headquarters”, which it said were “embedded under residential buildings in the heart of the Dahiyeh in Beirut”.

Several buildings in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood of Dahiyeh were reduced to rubble, Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV reported. The blast rattled windows and shook houses some 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Beirut. Ambulances were seen heading to the scene, sirens wailing.

At least two people were killed and 76 others were wounded in the attack, Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said, noting that this was a preliminary toll.

“The attack in Beirut’s Haret Hreik suburb has erased a complete block close to the international airport of Beirut, and around six to nine buildings were either completely or partially destroyed,” said Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Tyre in southern Lebanon.

“Israel has been working deliberately for the past weeks on hitting the southern suburb of Beirut, targeting Hezbollah commanders in different areas to dismantle the command chain of the group,” he added.

Israel has previously attacked targets in Dahiyeh four times over the last week, killing at least three senior Hezbollah military commanders.

But Friday’s attack was far more powerful, with multiple blasts shaking windows across the city, recalling Israeli air raids during the war it fought with Hezbollah in 2006.

The bombing came moments after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concluded his address to UN General Assembly delegates in New York, in which he pledged to keep up attacks against Hezbollah and fight until “total victory” in Gaza.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the attack showed Israel did not care about global calls for a Lebanon ceasefire.

Iran’s embassy in Lebanon said the attack represented a “serious escalation” and that the “perpetrator will be punished appropriately”.

A spokesperson for the Pentagon said the United States had no advance warning of the strike and that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as the operation was under way.

“The United States was not involved in this operation and we had no advanced warning,” spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters.

It appeared to be the most powerful attack in almost a year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which have traded near-daily cross-border fire since October, when the Lebanese group said it would carry out attacks on Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza amid Israel’s war on the territory.

The fighting has sent tens of thousands of people fleeing their homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border.

The Israeli military has escalated the conflict dramatically in recent days. At least 25 people were killed in Israeli attacks early on Friday, Health Minister Firass Abiad said, bringing the death toll in Lebanon this week to more than 720. He said the dead included dozens of women and children.

In his address to the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu said that operations against Hezbollah would “continue until we meet our objectives”.