Israel says it has killed the head of a Palestinian terror group Islamic Jihad, Muhammad Abdullah in the Noor Shams refugee camp in the central West Bank in an airstrike yesterday.

THE Muhammad Abdullah became head of the Iranian-backed terror group in the Tulkarem district camp after his predecessor Muhammad Jaber was killed in a battle in late August, the Israel Defense Forces say.

The IDF says Abdullah was killed in an airstrike along with a second terrorist, without naming the second person.

The military says Abdullah was responsible for organizing the group’s activities, including “many attacks.” It accuses him of developing explosives against Israeli troops.

The military says troops on the ground confiscated semi-automatic rifles and jackets found on the couple, the IDF says.

The official Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa reports that troops also seized the bodies of two, identifying the second victim as Awad Omar from the nearby town of Bal’a.

22 dead from the attack in Beirut

Yesterday, 22 people were killed and more than 100 injured when large explosions rocked Beirut on Thursday afternoon as Israeli airstrikes targeted at least one senior Hezbollah official in a previously untouched neighborhood in the Lebanese capital. The strike came as troops continued to raid villages in southern Lebanon and as Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets across the border into Israeli cities and towns.

THE Wafiq Safa, the head of Hezbollah’s Liaison and Coordination Unit, is believed to have been the target of one of the strikes, but managed to escape the attack in a third-floor apartment near downtown Beirut, three security sources told Reuters.

Alarm in Ashkelon

At the same time, drone alarm sirens sounded at dawn in Ashkelon and many surrounding areas north of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli Defense Forces announced that they had successfully shot down a drone that crossed into Israel, following drone alerts in Ashkelon and nearby towns north of Gaza.

It did not say where the UAV came from and there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

The attack comes hours after an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq claimed to have launched a drone over the Red Sea city of Eilat.