BEIRUT — A senior official of the Palestinian Fatah movement was killed Wednesday in a drone strike in southern Lebanon, marking a significant escalation in cross-border tensions between Israel and armed groups in Lebanon.
Khalil al-Maqdah died when his car was hit by a drone in the city of Sidon, according to Lebanese state media and Palestinian officials. The Israeli military later confirmed the strike, describing al-Maqdah as a commander working for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
“Earlier today… an air force aircraft targeted Khalil al-Maqdah in the Sidon area of southern Lebanon,” the Israeli military said in a statement. It claimed al-Maqdah and his brother were involved in “directing attacks and transferring funds and weapons to terrorist infrastructure” in the occupied West Bank.
Fathi Abu al-Aradat, a senior Fatah member in Lebanon, condemned the attack. “The assassination of a Fatah official is further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full-scale war in the region,” he told AFP.
Mounir al-Maqdah, who heads the Lebanese branch of Fatah’s armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, confirmed that his brother Khalil was the target of the strike.
This marks the first such attack on a senior Fatah member in over 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, which intensified following the outbreak of war in Gaza.
Fatah, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, controls the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. It has been a rival of Hamas, which governs Gaza, since a violent split in 2007 following Hamas’s election victory.
The strike occurs as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken left the Middle East without securing a breakthrough in Gaza cease-fire talks, underscoring the complexity of the regional tensions.
