Lebanon’s health minister says the death toll from the Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb the day before has risen to 31, including seven women and three children.

Israel’s military claimed it killed Ibrahim Aqil, a senior Hezbollah commander, and “about 10” others in a dramatic airstrike that has raised fears of all-out war.

Israel has launched a rare airstrike that killed a senior Hezbollah military official in a densely populated southern Beirut neighborhood.

A top Hezbollah commander, Ibrahim Aqil, has been killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs, according to reports by both Reuters and the AFP news agency. Aqil, who is also known as Tahsin, was reportedly killed alongside members of Hezbollah's elite Radwan unit as they were holding a meeting.

The attack, which Lebanese officials said killed at least 14 and injured more than 60, stoked fears Israel is driving toward a full-blown war on its northern border, even as the fight in Gaza goes on.

The attack represents another security failure for the militant group that has been reeling from Israel’s repeated blows.

Israeli jets are carrying out huge sonic booms over the Lebanese capital, Beirut, during a speech by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday, a Reuters witness said.