Sidon: An Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese 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 Mahmud Abbas, in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.
“The Israeli strike in Sidon killed (Fatah) group official Khalil Makdah,” 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 Makdah was killed “in a drone strike on his car.”
Mounir Makdah, 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.
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.
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.
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.

Dubai: Oil products tanker Sounion was attacked by two small boats and struck by three projectiles in the Red Sea off Yemen on Wednesday, causing damage to the vessel but no injuries, the Greek shipping ministry and UK maritime agency UKMTO said.
Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched a series of attacks on international shipping near Yemen since last November in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas.
The Sounion reported being approached by two small craft with about 15 people on board and said there was a brief exchange of small arms fire during the incident 77 nautical miles (142 km) west of Yemen’s port of Hodeidah, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said.
Sounion, a Greek-flagged vessel with 25 crew members, lost the ability to maneuver as a result of the attack, UKMTO added, and the Greek shipping ministry said in a statement the vessel had been damaged.
It also said there were no reports of injuries among the foreign crew — two Russians and the rest Filipinos.
British security firm Ambrey separately reported another incident in the same area, saying “the vessel was engaged by small arms fire from two skiffs in a previous incident 10NM further south,” it said, without naming the ship involved.
Delta Tankers, which operates the Sounion, confirmed it has been involved in “a hostile incident” in the Red Sea and has suffered minor damage.
“The crew and vessel are safe and unharmed. The vessel is currently adrift while the crew assess damage before the vessel will continue on its onward journey,” it said.
The attacks on shipping have drawn US and British retaliatory strikes on Houthi territories and disrupted global trade as ship owners reroute vessels away from the Red Sea and Suez Canal to sail the longer route around the southern tip of Africa.