(Jerusalem) The Israeli army said on Sunday that it had “eliminated” a Hezbollah leader in a strike in southern Lebanon, two days after killing another leader of this powerful Lebanese armed movement in a raid in the same region.
For almost six months, daily violence has pitted the Israeli army against Hezbollah on the Israeli-Lebanese border, which claims to support the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in its war against Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Pro-Iranian Hezbollah, which has an arsenal of rockets and precision missiles, targets Israeli military positions and localities near the border, and Israel responds with bombings on Lebanese territory, mainly in the south, leading including targeted attacks against Hezbollah and Hamas officials.
“An Air Force plane struck a vehicle in the Kounin region of Lebanon, in which Ismail al-Zein was traveling,” the Israeli army said in a statement on Sunday.
The army presented him as the “commander of a unit […] responsible for dozens of attacks” against Israel.
In Beirut, Hezbollah, in a press release, confirmed the death of Ismaïl al-Zein, without specifying his functions within the movement.
On Friday, the Israeli army announced that it had killed “Ali Abdel Hassan Naïm, the deputy commander of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile unit,” in a strike in Bazouriyé in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah confirmed his death.
Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, at least 348 people have been killed in Lebanon – mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also at least 68 civilians -, according to an AFP count.
On the Israeli side, ten soldiers and eight civilians were killed according to the army.