Israel kills another high-level Hezbollah official

Jerusalem. The Israeli military said Sunday it killed another senior Hezbollah officer in an airstrike as the political and military group has faced several devastating blows and the death of its top leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

The military said Sunday that it killed Nabil Kaouk, No. 2 in Hezbollah’s Central Council, in a bombing on Saturday. Hezbollah confirmed his death on Sunday, making him the group’s seventh senior leader killed in Israeli strikes in just over a week. Among them are founding members who evaded death or arrest for decades.

Hezbollah also confirmed the death of another commander, Ali Karaki, in the attack that killed Nasrallah on Friday in Beirut.

The Israeli military said Karaki was killed in the bombing, which targeted an underground complex in Beirut where Nasrallah and other senior Hezbollah figures were meeting.

Israel says at least 20 other Hezbollah militants were killed in the attack, including two associates of Nasrallah, one of whom was in charge of his security team.

Kaouk was a veteran member of Hezbollah since the 1980s, and was the group’s military commander in southern Lebanon. The United States approved sanctions against him in 2020.

The rubble of the attack was still burning more than two days later. On Sunday, Associated Press journalists saw smoke rising from the rubble as people flocked to the site, some to see what remained of their homes and others to pay their respects, pray or simply view the destruction.

Separately, the Israeli military indicated that dozens of aircraft have attacked Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the recent attack on Israel.

The military said it had attacked power plants and port facilities in the city of Hodeida.

The Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack on Ben Gurion Airport on Saturday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived.

In the United States, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Sunday that Israel’s airstrikes “wiped out” Hezbollah’s command structure, but warned that the group will work quickly to rebuild it.

“I think people are safer without him walking around,” Kirby said of Nasrallah. “But they will try to recover. We are watching to see what they do to try to fill this leadership void. It’s going to be difficult. … Much of their command structure has been wiped out.”

Kirby, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” dodged questions about whether the Biden administration agrees with the way the Israelis are attacking Hezbollah leaders. The White House continues to urge Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a temporary 21-day ceasefire that was proposed by the United States, France and other countries last week as world leaders met for the U.N. General Assembly.

Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged fire almost daily since the war between Israel and Hamas began following the attack led by the Palestinian armed group in Israel on October 7, which has stoked fears of a regional war.

Earlier this month, Hezbollah was also the target of a sophisticated attack on its pagers and walkie-talkies that was widely attributed to Israel. A wave of Israeli airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon has killed at least 1,300 people, including 156 women and 87 children, in less than two weeks, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes in Lebanon by the latest attacks. The government estimates that around 250,000 are in shelters, of whom three or four times as many are staying with friends or family, or camping on the streets, Environment Minister Nasser Yassin told the AP.

Hezbollah continues to fire rockets and missiles at northern Israel, but most are intercepted or fall in open areas. No Israelis have been killed since the latest wave of attacks on Hezbollah’s top leaders began on September 20.