FILE- Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem. AP
"Yesterday, the army struck in the Beirut area and eliminated Ali Yusuf Harshi, the personal secretary and nephew of Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem," an army statement said.
Harshi was "a close associate and personal adviser to... Qassem and played a central role in managing and securing his office", it added.
On Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon killed at least 254 people and wounded more than 1,100, in one of the deadliest attacks.
First responders in Beirut continue to search for people under the rubble.
Civil Defense spokesperson Elie Khairallah told The Associated Press that a wounded woman was found alive under the rubble overnight in the seaside Beirut neighborhood of Ain Mreisseh.
A man whose building collapsed after strikes in the capital’s southern suburbs was also found alive in rubble.
The Israeli attacks triggered widespread international condemnation and threatened to undermine a fragile two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran announced just hours earlier.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres “unequivocally” condemned Israel, according to a statement by his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric.
Israeli PM Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump claimed the Iran war truce does not include Lebanon.
However, both Iran and Pakistan — a key mediator expected to host talks between Washington and Tehran aimed at ending the war — confirmed that, based on understandings reached at the highest levels of government, Lebanon was included in the ceasefire agreement.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported Thursday that an Israeli strike overnight had killed at least seven people in southern Lebanon, in what it said was a preliminary toll.
Hezbollah said Thursday it had fired rockets towards Israel in response to its violation of the US-Iran truce.
Sirens went off early Thursday morning in Israeli communities along the border with Lebanon, near the city of Kiryat Shmona.
It came a day after the Lebanese resistance group said it has a "right" to respond to the deadly wave of Israeli strikes across Lebanon.
"In response to the enemy's violation of the ceasefire agreement," Hezbollah targeted the Israeli kibbutz of Manara near the border with Lebanon with a rocket barrage" early Thursday, Hezbollah said in a statement.
* This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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