BEIRUT: Hezbollah said it fired more than 100 rockets at Israeli positions on Wednesday in retaliation for a strike that killed a senior commander in Lebanon, the movement’s second such loss in recent weeks.
Hezbollah has traded near daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gaza, but an uptick in bellicose rhetoric from both sides in recent weeks has raised fears of all-out war.
“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 close to the group told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
The Iran-backed group said that “commander Mohammed Naameh Nasser”, also known as “Hajj Abu Naameh” had been killed, and also announced the death of a second fighter.
The Israeli army said in a statement that it “eliminated” Nasser, saying he was “the commander of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation’s Aziz Unit which is responsible for firing from southwestern Lebanon at Israeli territory”.
In a statement, Hezbollah said that “as part of the response to the attack and assassination that the enemy carried out” in south Lebanon’s Tyre, its fighters attacked two positions in the Israeli-annexed Syrian Golan Heights “with 100 Katyusha rockets”.
The group also claimed another retaliatory attack with “Falaq rockets” on a base in northern Israel.
An Israeli military spokesperson told AFP that about 100 rocket launches had been made towards Israel from Lebanon.
The source close to Hezbollah said Nasser had the same rank as Taleb Abdallah, a commander killed in an Israeli strike last month who was described by a Lebanese military source at the time as the “most important” Hezbollah commander killed to date.
That strike prompted Hezbollah to intensify its attacks on Israeli targets, firing barrages of rockets across the border in the days that followed.
The Israeli army statement Wednesday said that Nasser and Abdallah “served as two of the most significant Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon”.
A second source close to Hezbollah, also requesting anonymity, said Nasser was the third senior Hezbollah commander to be killed in almost nine months of hostilities.
In January, a security source said an Israeli strike killed Wissam Hassan Tawil, another top commander from the group.
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