3 Hezbollah operatives killed in Israeli drone strikes in Lebanon

Military says targets include ‘experienced engineer’ in terror group’s weapons R&D unit and a Radwan force commander

By Emanuel Fabian 21 May 2025, 11:49 pm Edit

Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

A car burns following an Israeli drone strike on a Hezbollah operative in Ain Baal, Lebanon, May 21, 2025. (Screenshot: X)
A car burns following an Israeli drone strike on a Hezbollah operative in Ain Baal, Lebanon, May 21, 2025. (Screenshot: X)

Three members of Hezbollah were killed in separate Israeli drone strikes in Lebanon on Tuesday, the military said.

The strikes came amid an ongoing ceasefire in Lebanon, which obligated the Lebanese terror group to withdraw from the south of the country.

The first strike on Tuesday took place in Ain Baal, a town near Lebanon’s coastal city of Tyre.

According to the Israel Defense Forces, the target of the strike, Hussein Nazih Barji, was a “significant source of knowledge” in the field of weapons production, and he worked in Hezbollah’s weapons research and development division.

Barji was “an experienced engineer” in the division and was responsible for “establishing infrastructure for the production of precision missiles,” the army said.

The IDF said Barji was killed to disrupt Hezbollah’s attempts to rearm, and because his actions “constituted a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”

The second strike, in the southern town of Yater, killed a commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, the military said.

A third Hezbollah operative was killed in southern Lebanon’s Aitaroun, it added.

The IDF released footage of the three strikes.

A November 2024 ceasefire ended more than a year of fighting, including some two months of open war, between Israel and Hezbollah. The fighting began on October 8, 2023, when the Iran-backed terror group started attacking Israel daily with missiles and drones, in support of Hamas.

The ceasefire allows Israel to strike immediate threats, and near-daily strikes against Hezbollah operatives and their allies have continued. More than 150 Hezbollah operatives have been killed since the start of the ceasefire.

Lebanon’s president said earlier this month that the country’s army now controls more than 85 percent of the country’s south, from which Hezbollah was obligated to withdraw under the ceasefire, though there has been no outside confirmation of the claim.

Israel was also obligated to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon. It has pulled out from all but five strategic posts.

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