Illustrative image. (The Israeli Defense Forces)
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said on August 3 that a prominent member of Hezbollah’s so-called Southern Front unit was killed in an Israeli drone strike that targeted southern Lebanon.
The strike targeted the vehicle of Ali Abd Ali in the town of Bazourieh close to the coastal city of Tyre, where Hezbollah maintains a strong presence.
In a statement, the IDF said that Ali was a “central terrorist in the Southern Front of the Hezbollah terror organization,” and involved in planning and carrying out numerous attacks. His killing is a “significant blow to the functioning of the Southern Front and the Hezbollah terror organization in the region,” the military added.
The Southern Front is, according to the IDF, a Hezbollah regional unit responsible for the group’s activities in the entire southern Lebanon, the equivalent of a regional command.
Hezbollah mourned Ali in an official statement without describing him as a commander or revealing his position within the group.
The assassination came as Israel is preparing for a possible response by Hezbollah to the killing of the group’s senior commander Fuad Shukr. Five civilians and an advisor from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed along with Shukr in an Israeli strike that hit the suburb of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on July 30.
It’s worth mentioning that Hezbollah announced three attacks against the IDF during the day. In separate statements, the group said its fighters shelled the sites of Hadib Yaren and al-Assi. It also said that buildings occupied by Israeli troops in the settlements of Metat and Avivim were targeted. The attacks were carried out in support of the Palestinian people and resistance in the Gaza Strip as well as in response to recent Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, according to the group. Hebrew media didn’t report any casualties.
Hezbollah and its allies in Lebanon have been launching attacks against the IDF since the outbreak of the war in Gaza last October.
So far, the border clashes have resulted in 25 civilian deaths in Israel and the occupied Golan as well as the deaths of at least 21 soldiers and security officers. On the Lebanese side, more than 600 people have been killed, including 369 fighters of Hezbollah and over 100 civilians.
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