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A member of the Palestinian Hamas Movement was killed on March 13 when an Israeli combat drone targeted a vehicle near the coastal city of Tyre in southern Lebanon.
In an official poster, Hamas identified its late member as Hadi Mustafa, a resident of the Rashidieh refugee camp near Tyre.
Lebanese media said that a second person, a Syrian civilian passing by on a motorcycle, was also killed in the same drone strike.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) later claimed responsibility for the strike, alleging in a statement that Mustafa was a senior member of Hamas involved in directing terror cells in Lebanon, as well as advancing attacks against Israelis and Jews in several countries abroad.
Mustafa was also part of a Hamas unit in Lebanon headed by Samir Fandi, who was assassinated in Beirut along with Hamas deputy leader Salah al-Arouri last January, the IDF added.
The IDF also vowed in the statement that it “will continue to act against the Hamas terror organization in every arena in which it operates.”
Hezbollah, Hamas’ main ally in Lebanon, has not yet commented on the assassination. The group warned Israel against targeting its allies more than once in the past.
A day earlier, Hezbollah launched 13 attacks against the IDF from southern Lebanon. One of the attacks saw the group firing more than a hundred “Katyusha” rockets at the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, targeting the headquarters of the Air and Missile Defense Command in Keila Barracks, the missile and artillery base in Yoav and a number of artillery sites.
The IDF responded by launching airstrikes on the town of al-Nabi Shayth in the Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, resulting in four injuries and the death of one Hezbollah fighter.
This was the first time the IDF has targeted this part of Lebanon since the outbreak of the border clashes on the backdrop of the Israeli war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
As of March 13, the border clashes have resulted in seven civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of at least ten IDF soldiers and reservists. On the Lebanese side, more than 300 people have been killed, including 228 fighters of Hezbollah and at least 50 civilians.
