Reuters: Senior Hezbollah official escapes Israeli assassination attempt.
Reuters reported on October 11, citing three security sources, that a senior Hezbollah official escaped an Israeli assassination attempt on October 10 in Beirut.
Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes in Beirut have killed 22 people, and the United Nations says its peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon are increasingly in danger.
Specifically, according to security sources, Wafiq Safa, head of Hezbollah's communications and coordination unit responsible for working with Lebanese security agencies, was attacked by Israel on the night of October 10 but fortunately escaped unharmed.
Earlier that day, a Lebanese security source told Reuters that Israeli airstrikes on central Beirut had targeted at least one senior Hezbollah official, the Iranian-backed group.
Israeli airstrikes hit a densely populated residential area with apartment buildings and small shops in the heart of Beirut. Previously, Israel had never attacked this area, which is far removed from the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah headquarters have been repeatedly bombed by Israel.
Israel did not issue an evacuation warning before the airstrikes on October 10. This was the deadliest attack in central Beirut since the fighting began.
The death toll quickly rose, and by nearly midnight, the Lebanese Ministry of Health reported 22 dead and 117 injured. According to a security source, among the dead were a family of eight, including three children, who had evacuated from the south.
Witnesses said at least one attack occurred near a gas station, and a thick column of smoke was visible. A large fire broke out in the aftermath as rescue workers searched for survivors in the rubble, according to video broadcast on Hezbollah's al-Manar television channel.
Israel did not immediately comment on the incident.
Following Israel's killings of numerous high-ranking Hezbollah officials in recent weeks, including leader Hassan Nasrallah, Safa is one of the few senior figures remaining alive as the group's leadership struggles to reorganize.
The attempt to assassinate Safa, who played a dual role in security and politics, marks Israel's expansion of its targeting among Hezbollah officials, a focus previously placed on the group's top military commanders and leaders.
According to Middle Eastern media sources, Safa, born in 1960, oversaw negotiations that led to the 2008 agreement in which Hezbollah exchanged the bodies of Israeli soldiers captured in 2006 for Lebanese prisoners in Israel. The 2006 event sparked a 34-day war with Israel.
Reuters also reported that in 2021, Safa warned the judge investigating the 2020 Beirut port explosion, who had sought to question several politicians allied with Hezbollah, that Hezbollah would remove him from the investigation.
The Israeli army issued a new evacuation warning on the night of October 10 for the southern suburbs of Beirut, including specific buildings. Earlier in the day, Israel had warned Lebanese citizens not to return to their homes in the south to avoid casualties from the fighting.
