From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
IDF says 50 Hezbollah members, including 6 top commanders, killed in strikes yesterday
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says 50 operatives and at least six top commanders in Hezbollah’s so-called Southern Front were killed in a wide wave of airstrikes in southern Lebanon yesterday.
“We can confirm that in the strike, more than 50 terrorists, among them six senior commanders, were killed. This is a heavy blow to Hezbollah. We can see this now during the fighting in the south [of Lebanon],” he says in a press conference.
“The terrorists we killed yesterday are the commanders and terrorists who were set, on the day that the order would be given, to infiltrate Israel, into towns in the north, to murder, and kidnap Israeli civilians,” Hagari says.
The Southern Front, responsible for the terror group’s military activity in south Lebanon, was commanded by Ali Karaki, who was killed alongside Hezbollah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah last month.
Yesterday, the IDF said that some 100 Israeli fighter jets carried out a large wave of airstrikes against more than 120 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.
The strikes, which lasted an hour, hit Hezbollah sites belonging to the terror group’s Southern Front, elite Radwan Force, rocket and missile division, and intelligence division, according to the military.
The Times of Israel Community.