While the situation in the Middle East is extremely tense after an unprecedented attack by Iran over the weekend using drones and missiles against Israel, the Jewish state has just dealt a big blow against an ally from Tehran. The Israeli army confirmed on Tuesday that it had killed a Hezbollah commander in a strike carried out in southern Lebanon.
An Israeli army plane “eliminated Ismail Youssef Baz, the commander of Hezbollah’s coastal sector,” the Israeli army announced. According to a source close to the pro-Iranian party, the man was killed in a strike on the village of Ain Baal, around fifteen kilometers from the Israeli border.
Hezbollah confirms Baz’s death
Baz participated in “planning the firing of rockets and anti-tank missiles towards Israel (…)”, according to the Israeli army which indicated that it had also targeted other Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese National News Agency (ANI) thus reported one death in an Israeli strike on Aïn Baal and deaths, without specifying the number, in an Israeli raid which targeted two cars in the locality of Chehabiyé , about ten kilometers away.
Hezbollah, for its part, announced the death of Baz and two other fighters in Israeli raids, without further details. However, later in the evening, the Israeli army announced the death in an airstrike in Kfar Dounine, in southern Lebanon, of Mohammed Hussein Moustafa Shechory, presented as the commander of Hezbollah’s Radwan forces in charge of rockets and missiles. in central and western Lebanon, and Mahmoud Ibrahim Fadlallah, another fighter of the movement. For its part, the Shiite Amal movement, an ally of Hezbollah, announced the death of one of its fighters in the strike on Aïn Baal.
Many deaths among civilians
Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas on October 7, Hezbollah has carried out daily attacks against Israel to support its ally, the Palestinian Islamist movement. The Israeli army responds by bombarding Lebanese territory more and more deeply and by carrying out targeted attacks against Hezbollah officials.
More than six months of violence left 368 dead on the Lebanese side, mainly Hezbollah fighters but also some 70 civilians. In northern Israel, ten soldiers and eight civilians were killed according to the army. Tens of thousands of residents had to flee the area on both sides of the border.