Israeli drone strike kills Fatah official in Sidon

An Israeli strike in the southern coastal city of Sidon killed a Fatah official on Wednesday, a senior member of the Palestinian group and a security source said.

It marked the first such reported attack on Fatah, the movement led by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah.

"The Israeli strike in Sidon killed (Fatah) group official Khalil Maqdah," said Fathi Abu al-Aradat, a senior member of the group that rivals Gaza's Palestinian Islamist rulers Hamas.

A Lebanese security source confirmed the report to AFP, saying the strike hit his car.

An AFP correspondent at the site of the attack said a car was struck near the Palestinian camps of Ain al-Helweh and Mieh Mieh, adding rescuers had pulled a body from the charred vehicle.

Lebanon's official National News Agency said Maqdah was killed "in a drone strike on his car".

Mounir Maqdah, who heads the Lebanese branch of Fatah's armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, told broadcaster Al-Mayadeen that his brother Khalil had been killed.

He told the channel his brother had been a commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and vowed the group "will respond inside of Israel."

Israeli officials have accused Mounir Maqdah of facilitating the smuggling of weapons into the West Bank.

The Israeli army claimed Wednesday the attack and said al-Maqdah and his brother have worked for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in "directing attacks and transferring funds and weapons to terrorist infrastructure" in the occupied West Bank.

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

Fatah said Maqdah had been killed "in a cowardly assassination carried out by ... Zionist (Israeli) warplanes on Sidon", describing him as "one of the leaders" of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Lebanon, the movement's armed wing.

In a statement, it said Maqdah had "a central role" in "supporting the Palestinian people and its resistance" during the Gaza war and an "important role in supporting resistance cells" for years in the West Bank.

Dozens of angry Fatah supporters gathered inside the Ain al-Helweh camp and gunshots were fired in the air.

Hezbollah and its allies have exchanged regular fire with Israel in support of its ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.

Hamas and Fatah have been bitter rivals since Hamas fighters ejected Fatah from the Gaza Strip after deadly clashes that followed Hamas's resounding victory in a 2006 election.

Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Earlier this month, another Israeli drone strike hit an SUV on a main road in Sidon, killing a Hamas official identified as Samer al-Haj.

The Lebanese wings of Hamas and the allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad have launched occasional attacks on northern Israel from Lebanon over the past 10 months. But Fatah has not announced any attacks on Israel from Lebanon since clashes began nor had it mourned members killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon.