An Israeli airstrike late Tuesday targeted a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut's southern suburbs, in what the Israeli military described as retaliation for a cross-border rocket attack three days earlier that resulted in the deaths of 12 children and teenagers.

A loud explosion was heard, and a plume of smoke was seen rising above the southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, at around 7:40 p.m. (1640 GMT), according to a Reuters.

A senior Lebanese security source confirmed that a senior Hezbollah commander was the target of the airstrike, but his fate remained unknown.

Lebanon's state-run national news agency reported that the strike targeted the area around Hezbollah's Shura Council in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of Beirut. The city had been on high alert for days in anticipation of an Israeli response to the rocket attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday, which killed 12 youngsters at a football field in a Druze village. Hezbollah has denied involvement in that attack.

The Israeli military issued a statement saying it had conducted "a targeted strike in Beirut on the commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians." Further details were promised.

Earlier on Tuesday, rocket fire from southern Lebanon killed a civilian in a kibbutz in northern Israel, according to medics. Shortly before the Beirut explosion, the Israeli military reported that 15 projectiles had been fired across the Lebanese border in the past few hours, impacting parts of the Upper Galilee region without causing injuries.

The Israeli air force had struck a Hezbollah observation post and "terror infrastructure" in southern Lebanon earlier in the day. Israel claims the Beirut strike killed Fu'ad Shukr, Hezbollah’s most senior military commander, whom it blamed for the deadly Golan Heights attack.

Lebanese Health Ministry reports indicate that the Israeli strike killed at least three people and injured 74 others. The casualties included two children and a woman. Many of the injured, some with serious wounds, were taken to nearby hospitals, as reported by Lebanese state news agency NNA.

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