The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday it had eliminated a senior Hezbollah commander in the terror group’s elite Radwan Force responsible for a March 2023 bombing in northern Israel, along with his deputy, in a strike in southern Lebanon the previous night.
The IDF said its fighter jets struck a building used by Hezbollah in Nabatieh, killing Ali Muhammad al-Debes and his deputy Hassan Ibrahim Issa.
According to the IDF, al-Debes, a commander in the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, was one of the masterminds behind a bombing attack at Israel’s Megiddo Junction that seriously injured a man, and planned and carried out other attacks against Israel, including amid the ongoing border conflict.
Lebanese officials have said 10 people were killed in the strike, including three Hezbollah men and seven civilians in one family. A Lebanese security official said the Hezbollah members were on the ground floor of the building hit, while the family was on the floor above.
Al-Debes had previously been targeted and wounded in an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanon town of Nabatieh a week earlier, a Lebanese security source told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Lebanese media reports said he was responsible for Palestinian affairs in the terror group.
Hussein Ahmad Aqeel, 36, from Jebbayn was listed by Hezbollah as another operative killed.
The wave of strikes on Wednesday came in response to a Hezbollah rocket attack on an army installation and city in northern Israel that killed an IDF soldier and injured eight others.
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
Fears have been growing of another full-blown conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, who last went to war in 2006.
Hezbollah has vowed Israel would “pay the price” for civilian deaths in Wednesday’s strikes.
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