Death toll from Israeli airstrike on Beirut's southern suburb rises to 37

At least 37 people were killed in total, including three children and more than 60 were injured after a rare Israeli airstrike on Beirut on Friday, Lebanon’s public health ministry said Saturday, NBC news cited the country’s national news agency as saying.

As the United Nations called for diplomacy, tensions escalated on Saturday with renewed exchanges of fire between the two sides. Iran, which supports the militant group Hezbollah warned that the region was “on the brink of war.”

Hezbollah, labelled a terrorist organization by Washington, reported the deaths of 19 of its fighters, including Akil and Wahbi, though it did not specify if all were killed in the same strike. This brings the total number of Hezbollah fighters killed since the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 to 499. Israel confirmed it had killed at least 16 Hezbollah fighters in the recent strike.

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Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire regularly since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel ignited the Israeli military’s devastating offensive in Gaza.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory during the nearly 1-year-old Israel-Hamas war. The ministry does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count but says a little over half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan called the reported death of Ibrahim Akil “a good outcome” and said that he planned to speak with Israeli officials later Saturday about the operation.

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Akil, the main target of the Friday strike, had been wanted by the U.S. for years for his alleged role in the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut and in taking American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s. He was under U.S. sanctions and in 2023, the U.S. State Department announced a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to his “identification, location, arrest, and/or conviction.”

With inputs from agencies.