ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Four family members of an Iraqi state media correspondent were killed in Israeli strikes on a residential flat in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday night, the same attack which also killed Hezbollah’s second-in-command Ibrahim Aqeel and a dozen more.

"Nevin Samouri's family lived in the same building where a meeting of the Hezbollah leaders was targeted on Friday night by the Israeli army, killing their leader Ibrahim Aqeel and dozens more,”  al-Iraqiya TV Beirut Bureau Chief Amin Nasser, told The New Region on Sunday. 

Nasser said that Samouri was not home when the strike occurred, killing her father, mother, and two siblings.

According to the Lebanese Health Ministry at least 13 people were killed and 66 others wounded in the Friday night bombings.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense said they targeted a meeting between Aqeel and “other senior leaders” of Hezbollah with “four missiles."

The Friday airstrike, one of the deadliest in Lebanon in recent years, has been viewed as a significant escalation in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. In Iraq, where many factions are deeply allied with Hezbollah, the assassination of Aqeel has fueled calls for solidarity and retaliation. 

Israel and Hezbollah have since last week engaged in cross-border daily exchanges of fire, following a major Israeli cybersecurity attack which targeted communication devices including pagers and walkie-talkies, claiming dozens of lives and wounding around 4,000, with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah describing it a “massacre” in a televised speech over the weekend and vowing retaliation.  

To avenge the killing of Aqeel, Hezbollah launched over 150 rockets allegedly targeting Israeli military bases in northern Israel between Saturday evening and Sunday morning, significantly expanding its attacks towards cities of Haifa and Nazareth.

Iraq’s Iran-backed Islamic Resistance claimed responsibility for several attacks on Israeli territory on Sunday.

“The Lebanon front is the Iraq front, and any threat to Lebanon is a threat to Iraq and its people,” Kazem al-Fartousi, spokesperson for Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, told The New Region on Saturday. “The Iraqi resistance is prepared to stand on the front lines in defense of Lebanon.”

 The Israeli defense ministry said that their "air force is ready in defense and attack." 

The near-daily cross-border exchanges have left hundreds killed in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters, tens of people in Israel, including soldiers, and a much significantly higher number of civilians who have borne the brunt of the conflict have been forced to flee for their lives.