Two commanders in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force were killed in drone strikes in southern Lebanon on Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces said, with the Lebanese authorities also reporting two dead in the attacks.
The first strike in the afternoon, targeting a car, took place in the village of Jibchit, close to the town of Harouf in the Nabatieh area.
The operative killed in that strike, Zayn al-Abidin Hussein Fatouni, was a commander in Radwan’s anti-tank missile unit and was involved in restoring Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon, according to the IDF.
In a statement, Lebanon’s health ministry said that an “Israeli enemy strike on a car in Harouf, Nabatieh district” killed one person and wounded another.
Recently, Fatouni was “involved in efforts to reestablish Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon,” the IDF said, adding that his activities “constituted a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
In the evening, the IDF carried out another strike, targeting a car in the southern Lebanon town of Qlaileh.
According to the military, the strike killed Muhammad Akram Arabiya, who was a commander in the Radwan Force’s special forces unit.
Arabiya recently “advanced efforts to restore combat capabilities and assisted in attempts to rebuild” Hezbollah’s terror infrastructure in the area, the IDF said. The military added that Arabiya’s activity “constituted a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
Lebanon’s health ministry also confirmed one dead in the strike in Qlaileh.
The Radwan Force was previously tasked with invading Israel in a future war, and the IDF said the elite unit had advanced the terror group’s “Conquer the Galilee” plan for years, until the 2023-2024 war saw most of Hezbollah’s leadership eliminated.
The military has repeatedly struck what it said were Hezbollah targets whose presence or actions violated the November 27 ceasefire, which ended over a year of conflict initiated by Hezbollah.
The strikes on Saturday followed several other Israeli attacks in Lebanon in recent days. On Friday, the IDF said it killed, in two separate strikes, a pair of Hezbollah operatives — including a senior commander — involved in restoring the terror group’s capabilities in south Lebanon.
A series of Israeli raids on south and east Lebanon on Thursday also killed four people, including an elderly woman, Lebanese authorities said, with the IDF saying its targets included a Hezbollah weapons depot, a training camp, a missile manufacturing site, and other military infrastructure.
And on Wednesday, the IDF said it assassinated a platoon commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force in southern Lebanon, accusing him of moving weapons and working on future attacks.
The US-brokered conflict with Hezbollah came after two months of open conflict in south Lebanon, which Israel invaded in a bid to ensure the return home of some 60,000 northerners displaced by Hezbollah’s near-daily attacks. The rocket attacks began on October 8, 2023 — a day after fellow Iran-backed terror group Hamas invaded southern Israel, sparking the war in Gaza.
The ceasefire required both Israel and Hezbollah to vacate southern Lebanon, to be replaced by the Lebanese armed forces. Israel has withdrawn from all but five strategic posts along the border.
Since the ceasefire, the IDF said it has killed over 300 Hezbollah operatives in strikes, hit hundreds of Hezbollah sites, and conducted over 1,000 raids and other small operations in southern Lebanon.
Weakened by the war and still facing regular Israeli strikes, Hezbollah is under internal and international pressure to hand over its weapons, with the Lebanese army having drawn up a plan to disarm it.
