IDF slays Hezbollah commander in response to attack on soldiers

The Israel Defense Forces killed overnight Friday a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force in the Ansar area in southwestern Lebanon, the military said.

The strike came in response to an attack earlier in the day on Israeli troops operating in the Security Zone in Southern Lebanon in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, the IDF said.

An IDF officer and two enlisted men were “severely injured” as a result of an explosive drone hit in Southern Lebanon, the military said later on Saturday.

The three were evacuated to a hospital and their families have been notified.

The military identified Ali Samir al-Haj Hassan as a battalion commander in the Radwan Force. Several other terrorists were killed in the IDF strike as well, the army continued.

The Israeli military addressed reports that the commander’s family members were harmed in the attack as well.

Hassan was targeted inside a military headquarters used to command Hezbollah’s operations in the area, the IDF said. “The strike was specifically directed at Hassan, who was a lawful target under international law,” the army emphasized.

“The terrorist used his family as human shields, hiding alongside them inside the military headquarters,” it added.

The Prime Minister’s Office said that the attack on the three soldiers was ordered from this headquarters, and that only later did the IDF learn that Hezbollah “deliberately” placed civilians inside it.

Lebanese media reported that Israeli strikes in the areas of Ali al-Taher Ridge, Ansar, and Nabatieh al-Fawqa killed nine people, among them women and children, according to Ynet.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Saturday slammed Israel’s retaliation, saying on X in Arabic that it “undermines efforts to stabilize the situation in the south.”

He further stated that the responsibility for dealing with terrorist infrastructure, “if it exists,” on the Lebanese side lies with the Lebanese state.

U.S. envoy: Israeli attacks will stop when Hezbollah disarms

Meanwhile, U.S Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa told reporters in Arabic that while no date for further Israeli-Lebanese negotiations has been set, “they will continue,” LBCI, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International, reported.

Asked whether Washington supports Israel’s latest round of strikes, Issa replied, “I don’t know. You know more than I do.” Israeli operations in Southern Lebanon will stop when Hezbollah lays down its weapons, he continued. “Everything will stop,” he added.

Issa spoke with reporters after meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee lashed out at Hezbollah, calling it “pure evil.”

Hezbollah wounds Israeli troops, then “rounds up children” in a military compound knowing that Israel will retaliate because Iran’s proxy group “want[s] them to be in harm’s way,” he said.

He equated Hezbollah’s conduct with that of Hamas.

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter voiced criticism as well, denouncing the Radwan Force commander for using “his own family as human shields inside a Hezbollah military headquarters.”

Leiter stated on X, “If the Lebanese government uses this incident as a pretext to delay or discontinue peace talks, it would hand a tactical victory to the enemies of peace. Derailing the talks is precisely what Hezbollah is trying to achieve.”

Lebanese military subjected to ‘humiliation,’ Hezbollah chief says

Meanwhile on Friday, Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem accused the Lebanese government of subjecting Lebanon’s armed forces to “bombardment and Israeli pressures” by dispatching it to enforce the trilateral framework signed in June between Beirut and Jerusalem, and brokered by Washington.

“How can you accept this ongoing humiliation of the Lebanese army?” AFP quoted him as saying.

“Where is the patriotism? Where is the dignity of the army that ought to be preserved?” the terrorist chief asked.