In light of the escalating cross-border conflict between Israel and the armed organization backed by Iran, the Israeli military stated on Monday that it had killed a Hezbollah commander in an airstrike that occurred overnight in Lebanon.
According to a statement from the military, Ali Ahmed Hussein, who had been accused of attacking Israeli targets in recent months, was “eliminated” by Israeli jets in the Sultaniyeh area of southern Lebanon. Hussein is a member of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces.
The Israeli military, Lebanese official media, and a security source all claim that at least two more persons died in the strike.
The military said Hussein had “carried out numerous launches toward Israeli territory” from Lebanon since war broke out on October 7 between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas, a Hezbollah ally.
Hussein was a “commander of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation’s Radwan Forces in the Hujeir region,” the Israeli statement said, adding that two other Hezbollah fighters were also killed.
Hezbollah announced the death of one of its members, Ali Ahmed Hussein, also known by the alias Abbas Jaafar, but it did not specify the location or time of the fighter’s passing.
His position or rank was not mentioned in the Hezbollah statement.
Along with two other members of the group, “a local commander… from (Hezbollah’s) Radwan unit” was slain in the Israeli hit, a Lebanese security source said AFP.
Speaking under anonymity, the source named the commander as Abbas Jaafar.
Israeli aircraft “raided an inhabited house” in Sultaniyeh, according to the official National News Agency of Lebanon, which also said that “three martyrs and a number of wounded” were involved.
It stated that at least ten households were impacted by the strike, which caused “huge damage” to surrounding structures and infrastructure.
With a formidable arsenal of rockets and missiles, Hezbollah has engaged in frequent gunfire with Israeli forces ever since its allies Hamas launched the historic attack on Israel on October 7, which set off a conflict in the Gaza Strip.
That attack resulted in the deaths of around 1,170 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 33,175 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.
The latest overnight strike on Lebanon came after the Israeli army said on Sunday it had completed “another phase of… readiness for war” on the Lebanon front.
Also Sunday, the Israeli military said its fighter jets struck a compound it said belonged to Radwan Forces “in the area of Khiam”, several kilometres (miles) north of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israel reported hitting further targets in south Lebanon on Sunday. Israel has been carrying out strikes inside Lebanese territory that are getting deeper every time, and it has already taken aim at many Hezbollah commanders.
According to an AFP count, the cross-border battles have claimed the lives of at least 363 individuals in Lebanon, primarily Hezbollah combatants but also at least 70 civilians.
Tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes due to the fighting in northern Israel and southern Lebanon, where the military reports that eight civilians and ten troops have died.
Israel and Hezbollah last engaged in combat in 2006.
