Photo: Collected
The Israeli military killed a senior Palestinian in Lebanon on Wednesday, leading to accusations from the Fatah movement that Israel was trying to ignite a regional war.
The strike that killed Khalil Maqdah, described by Fatah as "one of the leaders" of its armed wing in Lebanon, came hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended a tour of the Middle East aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and "made clear that we must bring the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure," the president wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Fatah, which is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and rivals the Gaza Strip's Islamist rulers Hamas, said Maqdah was killed near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.
Israel accused him of "directing attacks and smuggling weapons" to the West Bank and collaborating with Iranian forces.
His killing marked the first time Israel has targeted a senior Fatah member in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes with Lebanese, mostly from Hezbollah, during the Gaza war.
Tawfiq Tirawy, a member of Fatah's central committee, told AFP that the "assassination... is further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full-scalewar in the region".
Blinken, who left Qatar late Tuesday apparently empty-handed, appealed to Hamas to urgently accept a US-drafted truce proposal, while also publiclydisagreeing with Israel over its future presence in the besieged Gaza Strip.
"Time is of the essence," Blinken said before flying out of Doha after stops in Egypt and Israel.
A ceasefire "needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead," he said.
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