Israeli strike kills Hezbollah spokesperson as group prepares response to fresh ceasefire proposal

By Tamara Qiblawi, Allegra Goodwin, Ibrahim Dahman, Abeer Salman, Hamdi Alkhshali and Catherine Nicholls

(CNN) — The spokesperson of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Mohammed Afif, was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut on Sunday.

The death of Afif, who was for years an adviser to the late Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and had been responsible for the group’s media relations since 2014, was confirmed by the militant group in a statement calling him a “great media leader.”

Afif was at the headquarters of the pro-Hezbollah Baath Party at the time of the strike.

No evacuation warning was issued before the strike, which hit an area known as Ras al-Nabaa in the middle of the day, killing four people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it carried out a “precise, intelligence-based strike” that “eliminated the terrorist Mohammed Afif, the chief propagandist and spokesperson of the Hezbollah terrorist organization.”

Among those paying tribute to Afif was the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which sent its condolences to Afif’s family and Hezbollah leadership, calling him “a strong and defiant voice of resistance.”

On Sunday evening, another strike hit a building in Mar Elias, a densely populated Sunni-majority neighborhood near central Beirut, killing at least two people according to the Lebanese health ministry. CNN has reached out to the Israeli military for comment on the strike.

With Sunday’s attacks, five strikes have hit inside Beirut’s city limits since 2006, when a 34-day armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah took place.

Afif was one of the few public faces of Hezbollah, following a massive Israeli infiltration operation drove the group deep underground.

He often delivered speeches from news conferences amid the rubble in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which have been pounded by attacks since Israel began a new offensive on October 1.

Hezbollah is currently reviewing a US-Israeli ceasefire proposal submitted to the Lebanese government on Thursday, according to CNN sources familiar with the negotiations. It is unclear whether Afif’s reported killing will impact the negotiations.

Israel’s targeting of Afif comes amid an escalation in its offensive in Lebanon. Last week, Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz announced the expansion of the ground operation in southern Lebanon.

And on Sunday Israel said it was using artillery batteries inside Lebanese territory for the first time. Previously, batteries had remained on Israeli soil firing into villages across the border.

Artillery batteries are carrying out shelling from inside Lebanese territory “attacking targets in support of ground forces during their operations,” Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson, said Sunday. The aim, Adraee said, is to “expand the scope of the shelling” and “direct heavy fire towards” combat areas in support of ground maneuvers.

Israel’s war on many fronts

In northern Gaza, at least 50 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Beit Lahiya on Sunday morning, according to the enclave’s health ministry.

Dozens of Palestinians displaced by the ongoing Israeli operation in the nearby Jabalya area were sheltering in two of the houses hit, a local journalist said.

“We were sitting at home and suddenly we heard intense strikes, because of this we were not able to leave the house,” one eyewitness, who is also a resident of the area, told CNN without giving his name.

The resident said the people in the area started removing the dead from the rubble in the absence of civil defense and ambulances. Gaza’s civil defense say they are unable to operate in the area due to the continuing Israeli strikes.

“These were people displaced from Jabalya to Beit Lahiya,” the eyewitness said.

A video of the aftermath seen by CNN shows children panicking, with some crying in the background, as a man tells them to calm down and get out. A toddler, covered in blood, is being held in someone’s arms.

Another toddler is heard in the background crying, “mama, mama.”

The IDF told CNN that “several strikes were conducted on terrorist targets” in the area of Beit Lahiya overnight. It said that there have been “continuous efforts to evacuate the civilian population from the active war zone in the area” and that “IDF is precisely operating and is doing everything possible to avoid causing harm to civilians.”

Separately, Israeli strikes targeted al-Bureij in central Gaza killing 23 people, according to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were taken. CNN has also reached out to the IDF for comment on those strikes.

“It was a very terrifying night, with the sounds of small children screaming — every little one calling for their mother,” one resident in the area, Mahmoud Azaiza, said.

When asked about the Al-Bureij strike, the IDF told CNN it is “operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities.”

Israel launched a renewed military offensive on Jabalya last month after Israeli intelligence indicated that Hamas was trying to rebuild its capabilities in the area. The offensive displaced thousands of Palestinians and killed dozens.

The operation has inflicted losses on the Israeli military, with 20 soldiers declared to have been killed in northern Gaza since the operation began, including four last week, according to statements published by the IDF since October 6.

“This operation to systematically dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the area will continue as long as required in order to achieve its objectives,” the IDF said last month.

The continued offensive on Gaza coincides with Israel’s expanding operation in southern Lebanon. On Friday night, Israeli forces reached the village of Chama, some 61 miles from the capital of Beirut, in what is understood to be the deepest incursion into southern Lebanese territory.

Israeli forces withdrew after clashing with Hezbollah, Lebanese state media said.

Lebanon’s health ministry also reported that Israeli airstrikes on villages in the southern Tyre district on Sunday killed at least 11 people. CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment.

Israeli airstrikes continued pounding the Lebanese capital on Sunday for the sixth consecutive day. The IDF renewed evacuation warnings Sunday morning for residents of Haret Hreik in the southern Beirut suburbs, where Hezbollah is known to have a strong presence. The Israeli military said its air force had conducted strikes on six Hezbollah military targets in Beirut’s southern outskirts, known as Dahiyeh.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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CNN’s Lauren Izso contributed to this reporting.