Hamas official killed in Israeli strike on south Lebanon

Hadi Mustafa was reported to have died in a drone strike on a car near the city of Tyre

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A Hamas official was killed on Wednesday morning by an Israeli drone strike on a car in south Lebanon.

Hadi Mustafa was killed near the southern city of Tyre, Hamas said. Israeli forces claimed Mr Mustafa was a “significant operative,” while a Hamas source denied he was a top official.

Israel said he was involved in directing Hamas cells, as well as “advancing attacks against Israelis and Jews in several countries abroad”.

They claimed that Mr Mustafa worked under the direction of Samir Fendi, a senior Hamas official who was killed on January 2 alongside Hamas deputy leader Saleh Al Arouri in an Israeli attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Hamas said Mr Mustafa was from the Rashidieh refugee camp close to Tyre, one of the 12 refugee camps for Palestinians in Lebanon.

A Syrian man who was riding his motorbike nearby was also killed in the strike, Lebanon’s National News Agency said. Another two people were injured.

The strike, about 2km from Tyre, is the closest Israeli attack to the city since the war in Gaza began on October 7.

Hamas, which carried out an unprecedented attack into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7, also has a political and military presence in Lebanon, largely based out of camps where Palestinian refugees have lived for decades.

Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group and political party that is allied with Hamas, has been engaged in near-daily cross-border exchanges with Israel since October 8.

One of its motives, it says, is to relieve the pressure on its allies in Gaza, where more than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed in more than five months of war.

The conflict in south Lebanon, which has largely been contained to border areas, has gradually increased in its intensity and scope.