Members of the Islamic Group, also known as Jamaa Islamiya, claimed that their headquarters in the city of Sidon south of Beirut were targeted by the IDF.
The Islamic Group was founded in Lebanon in 1964, and is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. It has also worked alongside Hezbollah, though the Islamic Group is a Sunni group while Hezbollah is Shi’ite.
According to the pro-Iranian Al-Akhbar media in Lebanon, the Islamic Group claimed that “the enemy's destruction of our headquarters in Sidon will only increase our attachment to our land.” It said that its center in Sidon was subjected to “a brutal Zionist aggression by warplanes, which led to its destruction without any prior warning. Divine providence prevented any loss of life after the leadership’s decision to evacuate the center in anticipation of the enemy’s treachery.”
Al-Ain media in the UAE also said that an Israeli strike targeted the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Sidon, Lebanon. It claimed that “the southern Lebanese city of Sidon witnessed a major Israeli escalation with continued airstrikes and evacuation orders.” The Al-Ain report said Israel had issued evacuation orders “preceded by an air raid targeting a center belonging to the Islamic Group in the Al-Bustan Al-Kabir neighborhood.” It added that the IDF had warned about Hezbollah military infrastructure in the city.
The report pointed to a post on March 3 by IDF Arabic language spokesperson Avichay Adree that had posted a map of a building in Sidon. “The statement called on residents of the building identified on an attached map and neighboring buildings to evacuate immediately and move at least 300 meters away, warning that remaining at the site would put them at risk.”
The IDF post by Adree was put up just after 5:30 p.m. It also reads, in Arabic, that “the Israeli Defense Forces will attack a Hezbollah military infrastructure in the near term due to its prohibited attempts to rebuild its activities in the area.”
The Al-Ain report says that the IDF strikes hit “the Islamic Group's center (the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters) in the Bustan al-Kabir neighborhood of Sidon. The extent of the damage and whether there were any injuries is still unclear, while security tensions prevail in the city amid an exodus from the vicinity of the targeted site.”
It notes that “for decades, it has adopted positions and alliances similar to those of the Muslim Brotherhood branches in the region, and is considered part of the broader Muslim Brotherhood network, according to research studies issued by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The administration of US President Donald Trump classified it as one of three branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East, designating it as a terrorist organization, and imposed sanctions on it and its members.”
The IDF said in the evening of March 3 that “among the targets struck were weapons storage facilities, missile launchers, command centers, and a number of terrorist infrastructure sites belonging to the Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist organizations in areas of Tyre and Sidon in southern Lebanon. The infrastructure sites were used by the terrorist organizations to advance and carry out various terror attacks against IDF troops and Israeli civilians.”
The IDF's statement did not mention the Islamic Group.
IDF targets senior Islamic Group terrorist near Mt. Dov
Israel’s Ynet noted February 9 that the IDF had targeted Islamic Group, or Jamaa Islamiya, in the past, saying that “The IDF said a senior Jamaa Islamiya terrorist was arrested near Mount Dov after an intelligence-led raid.”
The IDF also said on February 10 that “IDF troops completed an overnight operation to locate and dismantle a weapons storage facility belonging to the Jamaa Islamiya terrorist organization in the Beit Jinn area in southern Syria.”
In April 2025 the IDF said “the IAF struck in the area of Haret en Naameh in Lebanon and eliminated Hussein Izzat Mohammad Atwi, a significant terrorist in the Jamaa Islamiya terrorist organization, who is also affiliated with the Hamas terrorist organization in Lebanon.”
Asharq al-Awsat also reported on the March 3 strikes, saying that "Israel struck a headquarters belonging to the Jamaa Islamiya group, an ally of Hamas and Hezbollah, in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on Tuesday, state media reported." The Islamic Group condemned the March 3 attack.