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November 18, 2024 | 09:07 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Israeli strike on a building in a densely populated district in Beirut on Sunday, November 17, 2024, killed Hezbollah's media relations head, Mohammad Afif.
Afif's death was confirmed by the Secretary-General of the Arab Socialist Baath Party in Lebanon, Ali Hijazi, to Al Mayadeen. He said that Afif was inside the building at the time of the attack.
In an interview with Al Mayadeen, Hijazi revealed that Afif had received direct threats in the local and regional media. He stated that targeting figures like Afif currently aims to "silence the voice of resistance politically and at all levels, because this voice will expose [Israel]."
Hijazi emphasized that Afif is a media figure, a civilian, not a combatant, by saying, "He does not lead military units in Hezbollah, but he is the head of a media unit."
He explained that the targeted building is owned and used by the Baath Party and confirmed that there were no civilians inside at that time. He added that the party often held meetings in the building during the ongoing war, a fact known to all parties.
"We support the resistance, and this resistance will continue, whether we survive or not," he stated emphatically in an exclusive interview with Al Mayadeen.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military declined to comment when asked by Reuters. There was no evacuation order for the area published on the Israeli military spokesperson's social media platform X before the attack.
The attack hit the Ras al-Nabaa neighborhood where many people displaced from the southern outskirts of Beirut seeking refuge from Israeli bombings.
TV station Al-Jadeed showed footage of a building where the top floor had collapsed onto the first floor, with civil defense workers at the scene.
Afif was a media adviser for former Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern outskirts of Beirut on September 27.
He managed Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV station for several years before taking over the media relations office of the resistance group.
Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in skirmishes for over a year since Hezbollah started launching rockets at Israeli military targets on October 8, 2023, a day after their Palestinian ally Hamas carried out deadly attacks in southern Israel.
In late September, Israel dramatically escalated and expanded its military operations in Lebanon, bombing the south, east, and southern outskirts of Beirut, along with ground attacks along the border.
Afif held several press conferences for journalists amidst the rubble in the southern outskirts of the capital. In his latest comments to reporters on November 11, he stated that Israeli forces cannot occupy any areas in Lebanon and Hezbollah has enough weapons and supplies to fight in a "long war."
The Lebanese Health Ministry stated that the attack killed one person and injured three others.
Ambulances were heard rushing to the scene, and gunshots were heard to prevent crowds from approaching the site.
REUTERS | AL MAYADEEN
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