CAIRO, September 30. /TASS/. The head of the headquarters of the Palestinian Hamas movement in Lebanon, Fathi al-Sharif, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the south of the country, the movement said in a statement on its Telegram channel.

According to it, the strike hit his house located in the Palestinian El Buss refugee camp near the Lebanese city of Tyre. His wife, son and daughter were in the house with him. They all died as well.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking over 250 hostages, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as retaliation for the aggressive actions taken by Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians before the crisis, launching air strikes on Gaza as well as some parts of Lebanon and Syria before starting a ground operation in the Palestinian enclave.