EXPLAINER
Sunday’s assault was the primary to focus on a central district of Beirut, not its suburbs, since October 7.
Israel killed 4 individuals, together with three members of the In style Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in Beirut’s central Kola district on Sunday night time, marking the primary time since final October that it has attacked a goal throughout the capital and never in its suburbs.
The Kola space is a well-liked transportation hub for individuals seeking to journey south from Beirut.
That is every thing it’s essential to know in regards to the assault.
What precisely occurred?
Israel attacked an house in a constructing close to the Kola intersection in Beirut. Footage of the assault reveals one flooring of a six-story constructing destroyed. The remainder of the constructing seems to be intact.
Amongst these killed have been Imad Audi, navy chief of the PFLP in Lebanon; and Mohammad Abdel Aal and Abdel Rahman Abdel Aal, members of the group’s political bureau. The fourth sufferer has not but been recognized.
The place is Kola?
Kola is a significant intersection in Beirut, bordering the favored neighborhoods of Mar Elias and Tariq el-Jdide and never removed from Mazra’a.
The encompassing neighborhoods are predominantly Sunni, though individuals of all sects cross by way of Kola to journey south.
What’s the historical past of Kola?
It’s named after a Coca-Cola manufacturing facility that operated there till the late Nineteen Sixties. Protests by locals brought about the manufacturing facility to be deserted till it was taken over by a Palestinian armed group after which bombed by the Israelis.
That is the primary assault on this space by Israel for the reason that Lebanese civil battle resulted in 1990.
Who’re the PFLP?
Based by George Habash in 1967, the PFLP is a secular Marxist-Leninist political group and a part of the Palestine Liberation Group (PLO). It’s the second largest group within the PLO after Fatah.
In line with the European Council on Overseas Relations, the group’s important benefactor was the Soviet Union, and it has been in decline for the reason that Eighties.
The group’s armed wing, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, has fought in opposition to Israel in Gaza alongside Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
Different necessary figures within the historical past of the PFLP embody Nayef Hawatmeh, who cut up from the group two years after its founding and shaped the Democratic Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and Ahmad Jibril, who cut up from the PFLP in 1968 to kind the In style Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine – Basic Command (PFLP-GC), which had the help of Syria.
Has Israel attacked different Palestinians in Lebanon?
Sure. On Sunday, Fatah Sharif, also referred to as Abu al-Amin, was killed within the El-Buss refugee camp in Sidon, alongside along with his spouse, son and daughter.
Hamas described Sharif as a Hamas chief in Lebanon.