From Senior IAF officials say strike that killed Nasrallah pulled off flawlessly
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
Senior Israeli Air Force officials say the strike in Beirut yesterday killing Hezbollah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah went smoothly with no errors or enemy fire on the IAF warplanes.
“Everything we planned was executed precisely, with no errors, both in intelligence, the planning, with the planes, and the operation itself. Everything went smooth,” Lt. Col. “Mem” the commander of the IAF’s 69th Squadron — who can only be identified by his first initial in Hebrew — tells reporters.
The 69th Squadron flies a fleet of F-15I fighter jets and is based at the Hatzerim Airbase in southern Israel.
“We went to strike in the heart of Beirut, in the Dahiyeh. We knew who we wanted to target,” he adds.
Meanwhile, the commander of the Hatzerim Airbase, Brig. Gen. Amichai Levin, says the ” very complex” mission was planned long in advance.
Levin tells reporters that the killing of Nasrallah “will have a profound effect that will change the face of the Middle East.”
He also says that during the strike “No missiles were fired at the planes… and there was no danger to the crews.”
“Dozens of munitions hit the target within seconds with very high precision, and this is part of what is required to hit underground sites at this depth,” the airbase commanders adds.
