Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander in an airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday, two security sources in Lebanon said, sharply escalating the year-long conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

An Israeli strike targeted a senior Hezbollah figure, according to two security sources. The sources could not confirm the identity or the status of the targeted individual.

An Israeli airstrike hit a neighborhood in Beirut on Friday, killing at least eight people and wounding nearly 60 others, Lebanese health officials said, the first such Israeli attack on Lebanon’s capital in months.

The Israeli military targeted a top Hezbollah military commander in an airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday, two security sources in Lebanon said, sharply escalating the year-long conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

It's first Israeli attack on the Lebanese capital in months and came after Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with rockets.

Israel has carried out what its military called a “targeted strike” on Beirut. It offered no further immediate details.

Israel launched a series of strikes on Hezbollah targets Thursday as the war against the Lebanon-based group widened in the wake of two consecutive days of deadly explosions triggered in wireless devices.

The powerful Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah continued to strike what it called military targets in northern Israel Thursday after thousands of its members were injured and several killed in what appeared to be an Israeli operation using exploding pagers and other communication devices.

One Hezbollah official said the episode was the biggest security breach in the group's history. The operations, which appeared to throw Hezbollah into disarray, played out alongside Israel's 11-month-old war in Gaza and heightened fears of an escalation on its Lebanese border and the risk of a full-blown regional war.