PALESTINIAN MILITANT GROUP Hamas has said its leader in Lebanon had been killed in an air strike in the country’s south.

“Fatah Sharif Abu al-Amine, the leader of Hamas… in Lebanon and member of the movement’s leadership abroad” was killed in an air strike on his “home in the Al-Bass camp in south Lebanon”, a Hamas statement said.

It said he was killed with his wife, son and daughter in a “terrorist and criminal assassination”.

The official National News Agency reported an air strike on Al-Bass near the city of Tyre, saying it was the “first time” the camp had been targeted.

The statement came hours after the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a secular left-wing group, said three of its members were killed in a strike on Beirut’s Kola district early Monday.

Israel has repeatedly targeted Hamas officials in Lebanon since the Gaza war erupted almost a year ago.

A strike in January, which a US defence official said was carried out by Israel, killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri and six other militants in Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold.

In August, an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the south Lebanon city of Sidon killed Hamas commander Samer al-Hajj.

Lebanon’s official Palestinian refugee camps were created for Palestinians who were driven out or fled during the 1948 war at the time of Israel’s creation.

By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army stays out of the camps and leaves the Palestinian factions to handle security.