The head of Hezbollah's media office, Mohammad Afif, was killed in an Israeli strike on a building in a densely populated district of Beirut on Sunday, according to two Lebanese security sources who spoke to Reuters. However, Hezbollah has not yet confirmed this.
The Israeli military declined to comment when asked by Reuters about the incident. There was no evacuation order issued for the area prior to the strike, as per the Israeli military spokesperson's account on the social media platform X.
The strike targeted the Ras al-Nabaa neighborhood, which has been a refuge for many people displaced from Beirut's southern suburbs due to the Israeli bombardment. The security sources mentioned that the building hit housed the offices of the Ba'ath Party, and Ali Hijazi, the head of the party in Lebanon, informed Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed that Afif was inside the building at the time of the strike. Al-Jadeed later confirmed Afif's death, showing footage of the damaged building where the upper floors had collapsed onto the first storey, with civil defence workers present at the scene.
Afif had a long history as a media advisor to Hezbollah's former secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut on September 27. He managed Hezbollah's Al-Manar television station for several years before overseeing the Iran-backed group's media relations office. Afif frequently hosted press conferences for journalists in the southern suburbs of the capital, amidst the destruction. In his last remarks to reporters on November 11, he asserted that Israeli troops had failed to occupy any territory in Lebanon and that Hezbollah possessed sufficient weapons and supplies to sustain a prolonged conflict.
The Lebanese health ministry reported that the strike resulted in one death and three injuries. Ambulances were dispatched to the scene, and gunfire was heard in an attempt to deter crowds from approaching the location.
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