Israel kills ‘central’ Hezbollah operative in Lebanon, strikes Hamas targets in Gaza
Ali Abd Ali, prominent operative in Hezbollah’s Southern Front, is killed by drone strike near Tyre; IDF hits alleged Hamas command and control center in former school in Gaza City
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
An Israeli drone strike Saturday morning in the southern Lebanon town of Bazourieh, near Tyre, killed Ali Abd Ali, a prominent operative in the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group.
The Israeli military described the slain operative as a “central terrorist” in Hezbollah’s Southern Front, the equivalent of a regional command, which is responsible for activities in all of southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah confirmed that Ali Abd Ali was killed in the strike, which Lebanese media reported wounded two other people.
His killing was “a significant blow to the functioning of the Southern Front and the Hezbollah terror organization in the region,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
Israel also struck a convoy of tanker trucks on the Syrian-Lebanese border on Saturday, a source close to Hezbollah told the AFP news agency, adding that it was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes in the border area.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor also reported Israeli strikes inside Syria near the border with Lebanon, without mentioning any casualties.
Israeli fighter jets struck several buildings used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon's Tayr Harfa and Kafr Kila today, the IDF says.
IDF tanks also shelled sites used by the terror group in Rab al-Thalathine.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah took responsibility for several rocket attacks on… pic.twitter.com/iAUFddVzVg
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) August 3, 2024
The strikes targeted an area near a border crossing “used by Hezbollah to move trucks and group members” between Lebanon and Syria, said the Britain-based, opposition-aligned Observatory, which is run by a single individual and has been previously accused of unreliable reporting.
“One of the strikes targeted a truck convoy,” while another targeted “a farm on the outskirts of Qusayr in Homs province,” the Observatory claimed.
Hezbollah has a strong presence on both sides of the eastern stretch of the Lebanese-Syria border, where it supports the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Israeli fighter jets also struck several buildings used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon’s Tayr Harfa and Kafr Kila on Saturday, the IDF said, adding that Israeli tanks shelled sites used by the terror group in Rab al-Thalathine.
Late Saturday, Hezbollah announced that Hassan Karim, 17, was killed “on the road to Jerusalem,” the terror group’s term for operatives slain in Israeli strikes.
The IDF later confirmed it had killed Karim in a drone strike in the southern Lebanese village of Deir Seryan.
Hezbollah took responsibility for several rocket attacks Saturday on Israeli communities and IDF posts along the border, in the upper and western Galilee.
The IDF said that at least one projectile impacted the community of Avivim, causing no injuries, adding that troops shelled the launch sites in southern Lebanon with artillery.
Sirens that sounded in Shear Yeshuv were determined to have been false alarms, according to the IDF.
Later, shortly after midnight Saturday-Sunday, Hezbollah said it launched dozens of Katyusha rockets at the Upper Galilee, with many intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system. Several impacted near Moshav Beit Hillel, reportedly causing fires.
Numerous Iron Dome interceptions seen over the Galilee Panhandle amid a rocket barrage from Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/nVIVVzoGby
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) August 3, 2024
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 have resulted in 25 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 18 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 387 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 69 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have been killed.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli fighter jets on Saturday struck a former school in Gaza City, which the IDF said was being used as a command and control center by the Hamas terror group.
According to the military, Hamas operatives were using the Hamama School in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood to plan and carry out attacks against troops in the Strip.
The IDF said the site was also used by Hamas operatives to manufacture and store weapons, as well as train with them before carrying out attacks on Israeli troops.
Hamas’s government media office reported that at least 15 people were killed in the attack, claiming that the school was being used as a shelter for displaced Gazans.
To mitigate harm to civilians in the strike, the IDF said it carried out “many steps,” including using precision munitions, aerial surveillance and other intelligence.
“The Hamas terror organization systematically violates international law, brutally exploiting civilian institutions and the population as a human shield for terror activity,” the military said.
In recent months, dozens of airstrikes have been carried out against Hamas sites embedded within schools and other sites used as shelters for civilians, according to the IDF.
The Israeli military said its forces had struck Hamas fighters and destroyed infrastructure of the group in Rafah and elsewhere in the enclave.
Hamas authorities also claimed Saturday that Israeli strikes had killed six people in a house in the southern area of Rafah and two others in Gaza City.
Israel and Hamas have been at war since October 7 of last year, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
Israel responded with an offensive in Gaza to destroy Hamas, return the hostages, and prevent Gaza from posing a security threat to Israel going forward.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 39,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
It is believed that 111 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 331.
Agencies and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
