Senior IDF commander killed in earlier confrontation with terrorists from Lebanon

The Israel Defense Forces has cleared for publication that the deputy commander of the 300th Brigade, tasked with defending Israel’s border with Lebanon, was killed earlier today during a confrontation with infiltrators from Lebanon .

Lt. Col. Elim Abdullah, 40, was a resident of the Druze city of Yanuh-Jat in northern Israel, near Acre.

The IDF says it “shares in the family’s grief and will continue to accompany it.”

Abdullah was critically injured in the incident in the late afternoon. Another five were injured in the northern clashes.

Israeli troops killed two gunmen who infiltrated into Israeli territory from Lebanon in the afternoon. Mortars were also fired at northern Israel.

The Gaza Strip-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group claimed responsibility for the armed infiltration on its Telegram channel, saying this was part of the ongoing war between Israel and terror groups in Gaza.

The clashes between the gunmen and Israeli troops occurred near the northern Bedouin Israeli town of Arab al-Aramshe and the Lebanese village of Dhayra.

The IDF said it spotted several armed men infiltrating into the country, and in a later statement said that two of them had been killed, while a third fled back into Lebanon.