Israel killed Hezbollah commander-in-chief Wissam al-Tawil in an airstrike in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese armed group said.
Hezbollah announced Monday the death of one of its commanders for the first time in three months of cross-border clashes with Israeli forces.
Al-Tawil, 58, also known as “Jawad”, was deputy head of a unit of the elite Radwan force.
The Lebanese National News Agency reported that the attack was carried out by an Israeli drone around 10:15 a.m. (0815 GMT) on al-Dabshah road in the town of Khirbet Selm in Bint Jbeil district, and that she had killed two people.
There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Who is Wissam Al-Tawil?
Al-Tawil is the highest-ranking Hezbollah member killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Hezbollah said it joined the group in 1989 and added that it took part in several “qualitative” operations against Israeli forces during the occupation of southern Lebanon before 2000 and was seriously injured during a attack in 1999.
According to Hezbollah, al-Tawil was also part of an operation that captured two Israeli soldiers in 2006. Israel responded by launching a large-scale offensive against Hezbollah that would become known as Israel’s Second Lebanon War and the July War in Lebanon.
Al-Tawil also fought in Syria, where the Lebanese group fought alongside government forces against the country’s opposition.
Since October 7, Hezbollah said, it has carried out several attacks against Israeli army positions across the Lebanese border “in support of the Palestinian people of Gaza and their honorable and courageous resistance.”
‘Fears of wider conflict’
Like the assassination of Hamas’s deputy leader last week in Beirut, al-Tawil’s assassination raises fears of a broader conflict.
Hezbollah said the killing of Salah al-Arouri, which Hamas and Hezbollah said was also caused by an Israeli airstrike, “will not go unpunished”, and claimed responsibility for an attack on a Israeli military base on Saturday.
In a report from Ibil El Saqi in Lebanon, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Imran Khan said Israeli authorities held al-Tawil responsible for the rocket attacks on the Meron air surveillance base.
Khan said al-Tawil’s assassination would be a “setback” for Iran-backed Hezbollah.
“It will be something they feel, but it won’t stop them. The way Hezbollah is constituted is such that there are people who are always ready to replace commanders and fighters killed on the battlefield.”
After the killing, sirens warning of rocket attacks were activated in northern Israel along the border with Lebanon.
Jamal Ghosn, a political commentator in Beirut, told Tel Aviv Tribune that a change has occurred in the fighting between Israel and Lebanese and Palestinian armed groups over the past week, during which Israel has resorted to assassinations targeted people who are not directly involved in the fighting. The battlefield.
“Hezbollah will certainly respond to al-Tawil’s assassination, either as part of its ongoing operations or through a single event,” he said.
Is the war in Gaza spreading?
Hezbollah lost more than 130 fighters in Israeli bombings of southern Lebanon, and al-Tawil’s death further raised fears that the war in Gaza could spread to Lebanon and elsewhere.
The assassination comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits countries across the Middle East to try to calm what he called a “moment of deep tension” in the region.
In a televised speech last week, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel not to launch a full-scale war against Lebanon. “Anyone who thinks about war with us… will regret it,” he said.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon has warned that any escalation along the Israeli-Lebanese border “could have devastating consequences for populations on both sides of the border.”
World leaders, including European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, have made similar statements and warned that “no one will win in a regional conflict.”
Sheikh Ali Damoush, vice chairman of Hezbollah’s executive council, said the group would not engage in any discussions about cross-border clashes until the Israelis stopped their “aggression against Gaza.”
“Israel’s predicament is getting worse day by day as the war drags on, because the longer the aggression continues, the more exhausted the enemy becomes, whether on the Gaza front or on the Gaza front. Lebanon,” Damoush said during a memorial ceremony for a Hezbollah fighter. , Abdul Jalil Ali Hamza, killed in the town of al-Khader, in the Bekaa Valley.
“There is no choice but to end the aggression.”
Furthermore, according to an article in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib declared that the country was ready to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which stipulates that Hezbollah forces will not deploy south of the Litani River and that the Lebanese army will control everything. from Lebanon, to the border with Israel.
The minister also said that Israel “must completely withdraw from all Lebanese territories and end its land, sea and air violations.”
During a meeting with soldiers in northern Israel on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to do “whatever it takes” to maintain security in the region.
“We would of course prefer that this not be done as part of a broad campaign, but that will not stop us,” Netanyahu said.
“They shouldn’t bother us.”