BEIRUT: Hezbollah said an Israeli strike Wednesday killed a senior commander from the group in south Lebanon, the movement’s second such casualty in recent weeks.
Hezbollah has traded near daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since its Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gaza.
“A Hezbollah commander responsible for one of three sectors in south Lebanon was killed” in an “Israeli strike on a car in Tyre”, a source told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Hezbollah said later in a statement that “commander Mohammed Naameh Nasser”, also known as “Hajj Abu Naameh” had been killed, while another source close to the group confirmed he was killed in the strike in Tyre.
That source, also requesting anonymity, said he was the third senior Hezbollah commander to be killed in almost nine months of hostilities.
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Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said “an enemy drone targeted a car” in Tyre, a coastal city around 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the border.
The first source said Nasser had the same ranking as Taleb Abdallah, a commander killed in an Israeli strike last month.
A Lebanese military source had described Abdallah as the “most important” Hezbollah member to be killed since the hostilities began.
That strike prompted Hezbollah to intensify its attacks on Israeli targets, firing barrages of rockets across the border in the days that followed.
In January, a security source had said an Israeli strike killed Wissam Hassan Tawil, another top commander from the group.
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