Israel launches multiple airstrikes on southern Lebanon, killing Hezbollah special forces commander
By Mohammed Tawfeeq, Irene Nasser and Kareem Khadder, CNN
(CNN) — Israel has launched multiple strikes on southern Lebanon over the last day, including one which killed a senior Hezbollah commander.
Mohammed Qassem Al-Shaer, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, was killed in a strike on the village of Qaraoun in the western Beqaa district on Tuesday, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The IDF said Al-Shaer had “advanced numerous terrorist activities against the state of Israel” and his “elimination” would impair the Iran-backed militant group’s ability to launch attacks against Israel from southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah confirmed Al-Shaer had been killed and said it responded to his killing by launching “dozens” of Katyusha rockets and several drones toward two locations in northern Israel.
No casualties were reported, according to the IDF, which said some of the “projectiles” were intercepted and others fell in an open area. The IDF said it responded by striking Hezbollah launchers “in the areas of Mansouri and At Tiri,” which had been used in the attacks.
On Wednesday, the IDF said it struck overnight 30 Hezbollah launchers and “terrorist infrastructure sites” in areas of southern Lebanon which “posed a threat to Israeli civilians.”
Lebanese state media NNA reported multiple Israeli strikes overnight on several areas, some of which caused “extensive damage” to property, crops, and buildings in the town of Al-Qlaileh.
In a statement Wednesday, Hezbollah said that another fighter was killed, but did not say where or the cause of death. It also did not mention the strikes.
The Israeli military also said Tuesday its air force had struck a Hezbollah military structure in the village of Rachaf in the Nabatieh governorate of southern Lebanon. Lebanon’s emergency service said 12 people were wounded in the strike 12 on Rachaf.
The latest strikes come weeks after Israel said it had killed Hezbollah’s most senior military official, Fu’ad Shukr, in a drone strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a populous neighborhood that is also the Iran-backed group’s stronghold.
Shukr was the most high-ranking Hezbollah official to have been assassinated since 2016, when Mustafa Badreddine, the group’s top commander at the time, was killed in Syria.
The hostilities in July raised the specter of a regional conflagration, prompting intense diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions.
There have been almost daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since war broke out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on October 7.
Israeli strike on the occupied West Bank
Israeli raids continued in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday with the IDF saying its “aircraft conducted an aerial strike during the counterterrorism operation in Tulkarm.”
At least five people were killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, after the Israeli military said Wednesday it carried out operations in the areas of Tammon and Tubas.
The IDF said it began the operation with the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) “against terrorist infrastructures,” and an air strike was carried out on “an armed terrorist squad” in the Tubas area, the IDF said.
The IDF added in a later statement that an Israeli “aircraft struck and eliminated a terrorist cell consisting of five terrorists armed with explosives who posed a threat to the forces” during its overnight operations in Tubas and Tammon.
The governor of Tubas, Ahmad As’ad, told CNN the strike hit a group of “young unarmed Palestinians” around 3 a.m. local time. The group, who were in their teens and twenties, were sitting near a mosque at the time, he said. As’ad also said five people were killed, as did the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
Video obtained by CNN showed at least one motionless body near a mosque in Tubas.
As’ad said “we were informed by the Palestinian Coordination Office of an Israeli military operation on the city and surrounding areas” before the strike.
Israeli forces raided the city and blocked access to the government hospital, he said, adding that there is an Israeli military imposed curfew. “The situation is dangerous,” he said.
CNN has reached out to the IDF.
The Israeli military has carried out major raids and airstrikes in multiple parts of the West Bank in recent weeks.
On August 28, it launched a large counter-terror operation with the ISA in the areas of Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas in the north of the West Bank, in an offensive Israel said was its most expansive in years.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that operation had been staged to “thwart Islamic-Iranian terrorist infrastructure,” claiming that Iran was working to establish an “eastern front” against Israel.
Israel has stepped up its military operations in the West Bank, where clashes have become more frequent since Israel began its war in Gaza in response to Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7.
Around 700 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah and the UN, whose figures do not distinguish between militants and civilians.
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