Image source, Israel Police

The Israeli police have issued warnings about damage to roads after Hezbollah fired 140 rockets from the other side of the Lebanese border into the north of the country.

In a post on Telegram, Israel Police says officers and detectives are scanning the area to remove any risk to the public.

The highway between Ayelet HaShahar and Yesud HaMa’ala in the Northern District is currently closed to traffic while the damaged is assessed, it adds.

Officers can be seen removing the debris from fallen rockets buried in the tarmac.

Image source, Reuters

More now from IDF spokesperson's Daniel Hagari's statement, who says Ibrahim Aqil and Hezbollah's Radwan unit were planning to attack and occupy northern areas of Israel.

He claims they intended to "murder and kill innocents", comparing their plans to the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on 7 October.

Hagari adds the IDF will "continue to act to undermine" Hezbollah.

The statement also outlines more about Aqil. It says he started being involved in Hezbollah in the 1980s, and served as the head of operations since 2004.

Hagari also says that he was responsible for anti-tank fire at an Israeli outpost in 2019 and a "terror attack" at Megiddo Junction in 2023.

Israel Defence Force's spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, says the air strike it carried out in Beirut earlier has killed senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil.

In a statement posted on X, he says other top members of Hezbollah's elite Radwan unit were killed as well.

Nafiseh Kohnavard
BBC Persian Middle East correspondent, Beirut

A little while ago they brought one of today’s casualties to the American University Hospital, where I'm reporting from.

The facility is already treating dozens of Hezbollah fighters and workers wounded by the pager blasts this week.

We are hearing, though not confirmed by Hezbollah, that the house which was targeted in a very packed area of Dahieh belonged to top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil.

Just hours before this attack, I could see two Israeli jets from my balcony in Beirut. They were circling above different areas of Beirut.

It reminded me of a similar scene, when they killed Fuad Shukr - one of Hezbollah’s senior military commanders - back in July.

Ambulances have been arriving at hospitals in Beirut carrying the 59 people wounded in today's strike.

Lebanon's health ministry says eight of them are in a critical condition.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

We have just had an update from Lebanon's health ministry, which says the number killed in the Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut hasrisen to nine people.

The number of wounded remains at 59 people, including eight who are in a critical condition, the update adds.

Image source, Reuters

The situation in both Lebanon and Israel is moving quickly, so let's bring you up to speed on what's been happening:

• Israel has carried out a "targeted strike" in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, the IDF says
• Lebanon's health ministry says eight have been killed and 59 injured in the air strike on the suburb of Dahieh in southern Beirut - one of Hezbollah's strongholds in the Lebanese capital
• The target of the attack was senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil, who has reportedly been killed by the air strike
• The IDF also says that the Iran-backed group fired 140 rockets at northern Israel from Lebanon, adding that its air defences intercepted "some" of the launches
• Hezbollah said earlier this afternoon that its attacks targeted Israeli army sites in northern Israel
• This all follows the explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies on Tuesday and Wednesday across Lebanon, which killed at least 32 people and injured thousands

A top Hezbollah commander, Ibrahim Aqil, has been killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs, according to reports by both Reuters and the AFP news agency.

Aqil, who is also known as Tahsin, was reportedly killed alongside members of Hezbollah's elite Radwan unit as they were holding a meeting.

As we've been reporting, Hezbollah's operations commander Ibrahim Aqil was reportedly the target of Israel's strike.

Here's an at-a-glance summary of what we know about him:

Aqil, also known as Tahsin, is a key leader in Hezbollah.

In 1983, he was a member of the group that orchestrated the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut and a marine barracks.

The attacks killed 63 and 307 people respectively.

In 2019, the US designated Aqil as a terrorist and the Justice Department website states he serves on Hezbollah's highest military body - the Jihad Council.

Last year, the US State Department said it will give a $7m (£5.2m) reward for information that leads to the identification, location, arrest or conviction of Aqil.

Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent, in Beirut

We are in Dahieh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut, and the streets around the site of the airstrike have been closed.

There’s a heavy security presence of Hezbollah members stopping journalists from getting close to the location, a densely populated area.

The atmosphere, unsurprisingly, is very tense.

Eight people have now been confirmed killed in Beirut by Lebanon's health ministry.

In an update, it says 59 people have been injured in the air strike carried out by Israel earlier.

Eight of those wounded are in a critical condition.

Israel last struck the Lebanese capital by air in July, in an attack which killed Hezbollah’s military chief Fuad Shukr.

The deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, Saleh al-Arouri, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut in January.

It's the third time the Lebanese capital has been targeted in airstrikes by Israel in 2024.

Paul Adams
Reporting from northern Israel

Like many of this morning's rockets, the latest volley was well outside Israel's evacuation zone along the Lebanese border.

Rosh Pina is around nine miles from the border. Sarit Zehavi, a former IDF intelligence office who runs a think tank in the north, told us that since June, a higher proportion of Hezbollah’s rockets have been landing well beyond the evacuation zone.

Paul Adams
Reporting from northern Israel

Sirens and a volley of rockets over Rosh Pina just now, with multiple interceptions.

We briefly sheltered in a safe room as around 15 to 20 Iron Dome interceptions took place right over our heads.

New pictures of the damage on the ground have been published.

They give a sense of the scale of the damage to some of the buildings hit by the Israeli strike, as crowds of people gather at the scene.

Image source, ANWAR AMRO/AFP via Getty Images

Image source, ANWAR AMRO/AFP via Getty Images

The target of Israel's strike in Beirut on Friday was Hezbollah's operations commander Ibrahim Aqil, according to a report by Israeli Army Radio, citing an unnamed security source, according to Reuters.

The AFP news agency also quotes a source close to Hezbollah that said that Aqil, the Iran-backed group's second-in-command, had been killed in the strike.

The BBC has not yet been able to confirm if Aqil was killed.

Lebanon's health ministry has just issued an initial update on the Israeli air strike in Beirut.

It says so far three people have been confirmed killed and 17 more injured.

Nafiseh Kohnavard
BBC Persian Middle East correspondent, Beirut

Over the past 11 months, with every escalation of tensions between Hezbollah and Israel, the question has arisen: Is a full-scale ground war on the horizon?

Perhaps at no point in the past few months has Lebanon felt so close to such a war.

Yesterday in his speech, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah - for the first time during this period - clearly indicated that they do not rule out the possibility of an Israeli ground invasion.

He added that on Tuesday, during the first wave of pager explosions, the group was expecting Israeli tanks to enter southern Lebanon.

Although from Nasrallah’s perspective this could be an opportunity for Hezbollah, as despite Israel's air superiority they are not expected to be successful in a ground war in Lebanon - based on the experience of previous wars.

However, many here are worried that the country may enter a prolonged and exhausting war - one with an uncertain outcome.

We're now getting on-the-ground pictures from where the Israeli air strike hit in Beirut.

In these photos, people can be seen inspecting the damage to high-rise blocks of flats in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital:

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent, in Beirut

The first images of the site in Dahieh hit show widespread damage, with partially destroyed buildings and cars.

This is a densely populated area of Beirut and the attack happened at around 16:00 local time (14:00 BST).