Wafiq Safa, the intelligence chief of the Shiite Hezbollah organization, was injured and taken to hospital after an Israeli airstrike on downtown Beirut on Thursday, Sky News Arabia reports.

According to the medical sources cited by the aforesaid television, the head of the Hezbollah special service is "seriously wounded and in critical condition".

Safa was close to Hezbollah secretary general  Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut on September 27, and carried out important mediating missions inside and outside of Lebanon.

In 2019, the US Treasury Department blacklisted Safa for involvement in arms and drug trafficking.

Al Mayadeen television, citing a Hezbollah source, had reported Thursday that the head of the intelligence service of this organization had survived the Israeli attack. According to this source, the assassination attempt against Wafiq Safa had failed and he had escaped.