A senior Hamas commander, Saeed Attallah Ali, was killed alongside his wife and two daughters in an Israeli airstrike on Saturday in northern Lebanon.
AFP reports that the strike targeted their home in the Beddawi refugee camp, near the city of Tripoli, marking the first time the area has been hit since the ongoing Gaza war began.
Hamas confirmed the deaths in a statement, accusing Israel of deliberately targeting Ali and his family in the attack, AFP reports.
Israel has intensified its efforts to eliminate Hamas leaders in Lebanon since the Gaza conflict escalated nearly a year ago, with multiple airstrikes targeting militant leaders.
The militant group announced that at least 18 of its fighters in Lebanon have been killed by Israeli strikes since the war’s outbreak.
Among those recently targeted was Fatah Sharif Abu al-Amine, another senior Hamas leader, who was killed in an airstrike on his home in the Al-Bass refugee camp in southern Lebanon earlier this week.
The latest escalation follows several high-profile strikes by Israel on Hamas officials in Lebanon.
In August, an Israeli strike killed Hamas commander Samer al-Hajj in the southern city of Sidon, and earlier in January, a strike attributed to Israel killed deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri and six other militants in Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut.
Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, including Beddawi, have long been areas where the Lebanese army refrains from intervening, leaving Palestinian factions to manage security. These camps were originally established for Palestinians displaced during the 1948 war, following the creation of the state of Israel.
