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The Shia Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has announced that one of its commanders was killed outside his house in Beirut, and an Israeli official denied accusations of being behind the assasination. “Around midnight on Tuesday, one of the commanders of resistance, Hassan Al Laqis, was assassinated in front of his house in the Saint Therese district of Hadath, as he returned from work,” the group said in a statement published on Wednesday.
“The direct accusation falls on the enemy Israel,” the statement said, without giving any details on the operation.
Lebanese security officials told AP that assailants opened fire on Al Laqis with an assault rifle while he was in his car, parked at the residential building where he lived, some three kilometres southwest of the capital.
He was rushed to a nearby hospital but died early yesterday from his wounds, the officials said, according to the news agency. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Al Laqis’ funeral will take place at 13GMT, Hezbollah sources told A Jazeera.
The statement described Al Laqis, who was in his forties, of “spending all his life and youth in the noble resistance,” adding that he was targeted by Israel “again and again and in many places.”
The statement described Al Laqis, who was in his forties, of “spending all his life and youth in the noble resistance,” adding that he was targeted by Israel “again and again and in many places.”
“The Israeli enemy is naturally directly to blame,” the statement said. “This enemy must shoulder complete responsibility and repercussions for this ugly crime and its repeated targeting of leaders and cadres of the resistance.”
Al Laqis was also, according to the statement, a father of a son who died during the monthlong war between Hezbollah and its arch-foe enemy Israel in 2006, in which at least 1,100 people were killed in southern Lebanon and 165 in Israel.
However, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor denied Israeli involvement. “Israel has nothing to do with this incident,” Palmor said. “These automatic accusations are an innate reflex with Hezbollah. They don’t need evidence, they don’t need facts, they just blame anything on Israel.”
Israel’s spy service has been suspected of assassinating Hezbollah commanders for more than two decades. In 1992, Israeli helicopter gunships ambushed the motorcade of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Abbas Musawi, killing him, his wife, 5-year-old son and four bodyguards. Eight years earlier, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Ragheb Harb was gunned down in south Lebanon. – Al Jazeera.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter