Who is Mohammad Afif, the Hezbollah media official who was assassinated by Israel?

Reuters quoted two Lebanese security sources as saying that an Israeli air strike on a building in a densely populated area of Beirut on Sunday resulted in the killing of Mohammad Afif, the media relations official for the Hezbollah group, but the group has not yet confirmed this report, while the Israeli military declined to comment after questions from Reuters.

The raid hit the Ras al-Nabaa neighborhood, where many displaced people from Beirut's southern suburbs had taken refuge to escape Israeli shelling. The Israeli army spokesman did not post on his X account any order to evacuate the area before launching the raid.

The two security sources said the airstrike hit a building housing the offices of the Arab Socialist Baath Party. The party's secretary-general in Lebanon, Ali Hijazi, told Lebanon's Al-Jadeed TV that Afif was in the building.

The channel later announced Afif's death and broadcast footage showing a building whose upper floors had collapsed onto the first floor and the presence of civil defense workers at the scene.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said the Israeli raid on Ras al-Nabaa on Sunday killed one person and wounded three others. Ambulances honked as they rushed to the scene while gunfire rang out to prevent crowds of people from approaching.

Who is Afif?

Muhammad Afif is from the founding generation of the Lebanese Hezbollah. He began his media work in the party in 1983. He was close to the former Secretary-General of the party at the time, Abbas al-Musawi, who was assassinated by Israel in 1992, and Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by Israel on September 27, 2024.

In 2014, Afif was appointed as Hezbollah's media relations officer, in addition to his work as a media advisor to Nasrallah. He managed news and political programs on the party's Al-Manar news channel, and participated in managing media coverage throughout the war that Israel launched on Lebanon in July 2006.

He participated in managing media messages directed to the public, and was responsible for supervising the media and psychological war directed against Israel, and contributed to formulating the party’s political and strategic positions.

In late September, Israel significantly escalated and expanded its military campaign in Lebanon, intensifying its bombardment of the south and east of the country and the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, as well as its ground incursions across the border.

Afif held a number of press conferences amid the rubble of the southern suburb. In his most recent statements to reporters on November 11, he said that Israeli forces had not been able to occupy any area in Lebanon and that Hezbollah had enough weapons and supplies to fight a “long war.”

Source: Al Jazeera + Reuters