IDF claims Hezbollah behind 2023 death of Lebanese Christian politician

Hezbollah murdered a Lebanese politician in August 2023, whose death was initially claimed to have been a car accident, the IDF says.

Elias al-Hasrouni, 72, was a senior member of the Lebanese Forces, Lebanon’s main Christian party headed by Samir Geagea.

Hasrouni was found dead on August 2, 2023, in Ain Ebel — a Christian-majority town surrounded by Shiite villages with strong Hezbollah presence in southern Lebanon — with Lebanese media first reporting it to have been a car crash.

Days later, local authorities and Hasrouni’s party claimed he had been kidnapped by several individuals and taken elsewhere, where he was beaten to death.

In a post on X, Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, says Hasrouni, who was “known for his strongly anti-Hezbollah stance,” was murdered by the terror group’s special operations unit.

“On the night of August 1, 2023, members of Unit 121 ambushed Hasrouni on a road near his home in Ain Ebel in southern Lebanon, where they kidnapped him and killed him by poisoning and breaking his ribs. Afterwards, to create the impression that he veered off the road and died in a car accident, they returned his body to his car, which they crashed into a tree, and left him inside it in a roadside ditch,” Adraee says.

According to Adraee, Unit 121, Hezbollah’s surveillance and special operations unit, “carries out assassinations targeting journalists, officers, politicians, and other figures in Lebanon who oppose Hezbollah and its activities.”

“This unit serves as the organization’s internal security arm, which it uses to track and eliminate its opponents,” he says, noting that among the unit’s victims was former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

“Despite the heavy blow Hezbollah suffered during the war, it continues to try to sow chaos in Lebanon and rebuild its strength by using Unit 121 and other tools. The Lebanese people, who yearn for stability and prosperity, fully understand the need to eliminate this decaying Iranian arm that has dragged the country into futile wars, spies on the population, and assassinates its opponents,” Adraee adds.

#خاص ???? جيش الدفاع يكشف عن وحدة الاغتيالات التابعة لحزب الله التي اغتالت السياسي المسيحي إلياس الحصروني

????يؤكد جيش الدفاع ما تم تداوله بشأن اغتيال أمين عام حزب القوات اللبنانية في بنت جبيل، إلياس الحصروني على يد الوحدة 121 التابعة لحزب الله الارهابي، وذلك خلافًا للشائعات التي… pic.twitter.com/eXr1ym2WKk

— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) November 14, 2025