Hezbollah said it had launched "dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles" - a new type of weapon the group had never used before - at the Ramat David air base, southeast of Haifa, Israel "in response to repeated Israeli attacks on various parts of Lebanon that have resulted in the deaths of many civilians".
Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel for a series of apparently remote-detonated explosions targeting Hezbollah members' pagers and radios on September 17 and 18 that killed at least 37 people and injured some 3,000 others. Israel was accused of carrying out the sophisticated surprise attack.
On September 20, an Israeli airstrike destroyed an eight-story building in a densely populated residential area in Beirut's southern suburbs while Hezbollah members were meeting in the basement, according to Israel.
Among those killed was Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah official who commanded a special unit called the Radwan Force. The Israeli military said Ahmed Wahbi, a senior commander in Hezbollah's military wing, was also killed.
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said at least seven women and three children were killed in the airstrike on the building on September 20, with 68 others injured, including 15 who were hospitalized.
It was the deadliest air strike on Beirut since a bloody month-long war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah and the death toll could rise as 23 people remained missing, a Lebanese government official said.
Akil has been wanted by the United States for years for his alleged involvement in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the kidnapping of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s. Last year, the U.S. Department of Foreign Affairs announced a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to the “identification, location, arrest and/or conviction” of Akil.
Wahbi, meanwhile, is described as a commander who played a key role in Hezbollah for decades, having been detained in an Israeli prison in southern Lebanon in 1984. Hezbollah said Wahbi was one of the "field commanders" in a 1997 ambush in southern Lebanon that killed 12 Israeli soldiers.
According to Hezbollah, 15 members of the group were killed by Israeli forces but did not specify the time and place of death. Meanwhile, Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani said on September 21 that 16 Hezbollah members were killed in an airstrike on September 20.
Israel and Hezbollah also exchanged heavy attacks and airstrikes on September 21. The Israeli military confirmed that about 90 rockets were fired into northern Israel and that Israel attacked more than 400 rocket launchers in Lebanon on the same day.
