"The Israeli strike in Sidon killed (Fatah) group official Khalil Makdah," said Fathi Abu al-Aradat, a senior member of the Palestinian president's movement, with a security source confirming the report to AFP and adding the strike hit his car.

Another senior official from the Fatah movement said on Wednesday that Israel killed a fellow party member in south Lebanon in order to start a regional war.

The "assassination of a Fatah official is further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full-scale war in the region", Tawfiq Tirawy, a member of Fatah's central committee, told AFP.

"Earlier today... an air force aircraft targeted Khalil al-Maqdah in the Sidon area of southern Lebanon," the Israeli army said in a statement.

The army claimed that Maqdah and his brother worked for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in "directing attacks, transferring weapons and funds to militants" in the occupied West Bank.