Dr Mike Evans

Hezbollah field commander killed in IDF drone strike in Lebanon

A top Hezbollah field commander was killed in an Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon on Tuesday night, the military said.

Hussein Ibrahim Makki, according to the Israel Defense Forces, was a senior commander in the terror group’s so-called Southern Front unit. He had previously commanded Hezbollah’s coastal division.

Makki was targeted while driving near Tyre, according to the IDF and Lebanese media. Emergency responders said two others were wounded in the strike. Hezbollah announced Makki’s death, saying he was killed “on the road to Jerusalem,” its term for operatives slain in Israeli strikes. The terror group did not refer to Makki as a commander or list a role for him.

The IDF said Makki “planned and carried out many terror attacks against the Israeli home front amid the war.”The military says that more than 30 Hezbollah commanders have been killed in its strikes in southern Lebanon amid the war in the past seven months.

The strike came hours after an Israeli civilian was killed and five soldiers were wounded in a Hezbollah anti-tank guided missile attack against a military position near the northern community of Adamit.

Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.

So far, the skirmishes on the border have resulted in ten civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 14 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.

Hezbollah has named 298 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 60 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and at least 60 civilians have been killed.

For the second night in a row, the IDF said its fighter jets shot down two drones heading toward Israeli territory from the “eastern direction.” Neither drone entered Israeli airspace, the military added.