Israel kills the commander of Hezbollah's drone unit in airstrike on southern Lebanon
Shafaq News/ Three senior members of Hezbollah were killed in an Israeli drone attack on a vehicle in southern Lebanon, according to media reports on Tuesday morning.
Two sources who spoke to Reuters said that the attack, which took place in Ghandouriyeh, was a targeted drone strike on a vehicle. As per Israeli media, one of those killed in the drone strike is the commander responsible for the organization's drone operations.
Hassan Abeid al-Hussein Ismail, the head of Hezbollah's drone operations in southern Lebanon, was reportedly responsible for the assaults of UAVs into northern Israeli settlements since October 7.
The targeted killing took Hezbollah's total number of casualties up to 158, as per the powerful Iran-backed Shiite group.
Israeli officials has been expecting a Hezbollah response since the assassination of the commander of Hezbollah's Radwan Force, Wissam al-Tawil, on Monday.
Hezbollah stated on Tuesday that they sent an attack drone to target the Israeli Army's Northern Command base near Safed. The latter confirmed that a grounded UAV was detected at the base in the north of the country, with no damage and no casualties.
The Israeli military also stated that fighter jets attacked Hezbollah infrastructure in the village of Kafr Kila in southern Lebanon on Tuesday and that fighter jets were also dispatched to attack a squadron of UAVs launched from Lebanon.
Sirens alerting residents to a possible unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) intrusion sounded in the northern city of Safed and across northern Israel on Tuesday morning.
UAV warnings were sounded in Dishon; Yiftah; Malkia; Mevuot Hermon Regional Council; Ramot Naftali; Avivim; Bar'am and Yir'on.
Rocket sirens also sounded in northern settlements shortly afterward, including in Malkia and Ramot Naftali. There were reports of rockets falling in open areas.
Although Hezbollah has increasingly fired rockets and sent UAVs into Israeli territory from Lebanon since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War, sirens sounding as far south as Safed are rare. A second siren sounded in Safed shortly after the first.
Jerusalem Post said that Israel has been bracing itself for a heavy response from Hezbollah since the killing of senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri, deputy leader of Hamas outside Gaza, last Tuesday in an Israeli drone strike in Beirut. Israel was also behind the assassination of the commander of Hezbollah's Radwan Force, Wissam al-Tawil on Monday.
Some 80,000 Israeli civilians have been displaced since October and had to leave around 40 settlements in the north. "Since Hezbollah began its attacks, the IDF has been responding by striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon," Israeli Army Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari noted in December.
