In a rare admission, the IDF confirms carrying out a drone strike in Syria earlier today, killing a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative.
According to the IDF, the airstrike on the Syrian side of the Beirut-Damascus highway, near the border between Lebanon and Syria, killed Fares Qasem.
The military says Qasem is a prominent member of Islamic Jihad’s operations unit.
“Qasem was tasked with building operational plans for the PIJ terror organization in Syria and Lebanon, and took a central part in the recruitment of Palestinian terrorists to the Hezbollah terror organization, for the purpose of carrying out terror operations from Lebanon against the State of Israel,” the IDF says.
The IDF says that in recent years, Hezbollah, with Iranian funding, has been recruiting Palestinians to the terror organization to attack Israel.
Two more PIJ operatives were killed in the strike, along with Hezbollah operative Muhammad Taha. The IDF says the four were driving from Syria to Lebanon to carry out operations on behalf of Hezbollah.
The IDF rarely takes responsibility for strikes in Syria.
The Hezbollah terror group announces the death of a member killed “on the road to Jerusalem,” its term for operatives slain in Israeli strikes.
He is named as Muhammad Taha, from Baalbek.
His death brings the terror group’s toll since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip to at least 431
The announcement comes following reports of an Israeli drone strike on a vehicle on the Beirut-Damascus highway, on the Syrian side of the border.
Two security sources told Reuters that four people were killed in the strike — a member of Hezbollah and three Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives.
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