Late commander Muhammad Nimah Nasser as seen in a poster. (Hezbollah Military Media)
A senior military commander of Hezbollah responsible for one of the three sectors in the group’s heartland, southern Lebanon, was assassinated by Israel on July 2.
The commander, identified as Muhammad Nimah Nasser, was reportedly killed when a strike targeted his vehicle near the Italian Hospital in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre. Video footage showing the aftermath of the strike were posted to social networks.
Hezbollah mourned Nasser, who was also known as Abu Nimah, in a statement saying that he was killed “on the road to Jerusalem,” the group’s term for Israeli strikes. In the statement, Nasser was referred to as a commander.
Nasser was reportedly the top commander of the Aziz unit, which is responsible for one of three main sectors in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah rarely refers to its senior members slain in Israeli strikes as commanders. The only other members referred to as commanders were Taleb Abdullah, the commander of the Nasr runit -which is also responsible for one of southern Lebanon’s three sectors-, who was killed in June, and Wissam al-Tawil, the deputy head of the group’s elite Radwan unit, who was killed in January.
The Israeli military has not yet released any statement on the assassination of Nasser, which will likely lead to a serious escalation on the front with Lebanon.
The clashes on the Lebanese-Israeli border first broke out after the start of the war in the Gaza Strip last October, with Hezbollah and its allies launching nearly-daily attacks in support of Hamas and other armed factions in the Palestinian enclave.
So far, the border clashes have resulted in ten civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of at least 15 IDF soldiers and reservists. On the Lebanese side, more than 500 people have been killed, including 342 fighters of Hezbollah and at least 90 civilians.
The assassination of Nasser will likely trigger a fierce response from Hezbollah. Israel may be in fact looking for this to justify launching an offensive in Lebanon.
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