IDF says strike on Lebanon-Syria border killed senior commander in PFLP terror group

A senior commander in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group was killed Thursday in an Israeli airstrike at a border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, the IDF and Shin Bet announced on Friday afternoon.

The statement confirmed a previous announcement by the group itself, as well as Lebanese media reports.

According to the IDF, the strike in Lebanon’s eastern Beqaa Valley killed Mohammed Wishah, a Syrian senior terror operative in the PFLP, who served as the head of the group’s Military-Security Department in Syria.

He assumed the role after his predecessor, Shantal al-Al, was killed in a strike in Beirut in September 2024.

Wishah was responsible for “coordinating with other Palestinian terror organizations, strengthening ties and coordination with the Shiite axis, and recently operated to advance military operations against Israeli targets,” the IDF added.

The IDF released footage of the strike.

צה"ל ושב"כ חיסלו בלבנון את ראש המחלקה הצבאית-ביטחונית של ארגון הטרור החזית העממית בסוריה

אתמול, צה"ל תקף וחיסל במרחב הבקאע שבלבנון בהכוונה מודיעינית של שב"כ את המחבל מחמד ושאח ״אבו ח'ליל״, מחבל סורי בכיר בארגון הטרור החזית העממית לשחרור פלסטין בסוריה.

Advertisement

המחבל היה אחראי על יצירת… pic.twitter.com/OTIyVkd2tx

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) August 8, 2025

The PFLP said the strike near the Lebanese border crossing of Masnaa killed Wishah and his bodyguard as they were on their way to Syria.

Senior PFLP official Marwan Abdel-Al mourned the death of Wishah and his bodyguard, Mufid Hussein, in a post on social media. “We have lost two of the most loyal comrades who gave their precious souls to freedom,” Abdel-Al wrote.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said the airstrike on eastern Lebanon killed six people and wounded 10, without identifying the victims.

Since the Israel-Hamas war began with the terror group’s October 2023 onslaught, Israel has targeted Palestinian terror operatives in Lebanon, including PFLP members. Three PFLP members were killed in an airstrike on a Beirut apartment last September.

A PFLP official said Wishah had been in Lebanon to meet with other officials with the group and was on his way back to Syria when the airstrike happened. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to not being authorized to speak to the media.

The PFLP statement said Wishah was born in the Gaza Strip in 1954 and spent five years in Israeli jails shortly after he joined the Palestinian terror group in 1973.

For many years, the leftist and secular PFLP has been the second-largest member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah group.

Separately, an IDF drone struck a vehicle near the towns of Ansariyeh and Aadloun, located between Tyre and Sidon in southern Lebanon, killing a senior Hezbollah intelligence commander, the military said.

Lebanese media said that the strike killed a citizen journalist, Mohammed Shehadeh, though Hezbollah claimed him as one of its members.

The IDF said that Shehadeh was chief of intelligence in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, and his activities were a violation of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.

مراسل "ليبانون ديبايت": غارة من مسيرة إسرائيلية على طريق بلدة أنصارية pic.twitter.com/HAwQhvu68p

— Lebanon Debate (@lebanondebate) August 8, 2025

On October 8, 2023, a day after the Hamas onslaught, Hezbollah started, unprovoked, to send rockets toward Israeli cities on a daily basis, sparking a 14-month war that ended late last year with a ceasefire, with the Iran-backed terror group severely weakened. The Lebanese government this week adopted a motion calling for Hezbollah to be disbanded.

Since the truce was reached, Israel has carried out scores of airstrikes on Lebanon, mainly targeting Hezbollah members, saying they were violating the ceasefire.