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Air strike on Lebanon: Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has been taking place since October
Photo: Kawnat Haju / AFP
The Israeli army says it has deliberately killed an important commander of the pro-Iranian Shiite militia Hezbollah. He is a commander of the Radwan Force, an elite Hezbollah unit in southern Lebanon. He and two other Hezbollah fighters under his command were killed in an air strike in Sultaniya. Hezbollah confirmed the commander's death but gave no further details.
His rank is comparable to that of a brigade commander, the army said in a statement. "In his role, he was responsible for planning and executing terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians in northern Israel." Since the beginning of the war, he has commanded several attacks on Israeli territory.
Nasrallah threatens to expand the conflict
Since the beginning of the Gaza war after the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7th, there have been repeated confrontations between Israel's army and militant groups such as Hezbollah in the Israeli-Lebanese border region. It is the worst escalation since the second Lebanon war in 2006.
According to a count by the AFP news agency, at least 359 people are said to have been killed, most of them Hezbollah fighters. At least 70 civilians also died. Ten soldiers and eight civilians were killed in Israel.
The Israeli army says it has made further preparations for a possible war on the border with Lebanon. The military announced on Sunday that "a new phase in the Northern Command's preparation for war has been completed." The army is thus able to "call up and equip all the soldiers it needs within a few hours and bring them to the front for defensive and offensive missions."
The head of the Hezbollah militia, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened on Friday to expand the conflict with Israel. "We have not yet used our main weapons or our main armed forces," Nasrallah said in a televised speech. Hezbollah does not fear war and is "fully prepared," he added.
muk/dpa/AFP