Top Islamic Jihad terrorist killed in Israeli drone strike on Syria-Lebanon border

Israel confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that it had killed a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist in an airstrike near the Syria-Lebanon border several hours earlier.

The Israel Defense Forces described Faris Qasim as a “significant terrorist in the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization’s Operations Division,” who was responsible for developing the terror group’s operational plans in Syria and Lebanon.

“He had a central role in the recruitment of Palestinian terrorists into the Hezbollah terrorist organization responsible for carrying out terrorist attacks from Lebanon against the State of Israel,” the IDF said.

“In recent years, the Hezbollah terrorist organization, with Iranian direction and funding, has been systematically recruiting Palestinian operatives to advance and direct terrorist activity against the State of Israel from Lebanese territory,” the statement continued.

Additional Islamic Jihad terrorists traveling from Syria to Lebanon to carry out terrorist activities for Hezbollah were killed in the strike, according to the IDF.

Earlier reports said that four terror operatives were killed in a drone strike on a vehicle at the Syria-Lebanon border.

Israel, which did not initially comment on the incident, has for years allegedly targeted Tehran’s terror proxies in Syria and combated Iranian entrenchment there, including weapons shipments and military infrastructure.

Islamic Jihad has dispatched its Syrian-based terrorists to Lebanon to join Hezbollah in its fight against Israel, which the Iranian terror proxy has been waging since Oct. 8, a day after the Hamas massacre of 1,200 people in the northwestern Negev.

Wednesday’s drone strike came hours after an Israeli airstrike hit a pickup truck in northeastern Lebanon near the Syrian border. A security source told Reuters that the vehicle was carrying military equipment which was likely a damaged rocket launcher on its way to be repaired.

AFP reported, citing a Lebanese security source, that the attack targeted two Hezbollah trucks around 6.2 miles from Baalbek, Lebanon and that one person was wounded in the strike.

IDF soldier wounded

An IDF soldier was lightly wounded in a Hezbollah drone attack on the Galilee Panhandle on Tuesday evening, according to the army.

The explosives-laden drone crossed into Israeli territory, setting off sirens and impacting near Beit Hillel, wounding the soldier.

Hezbollah took responsibility for the attack.

Earlier on Tuesday, the IDF said it carried out an airstrike on a building in Southern Lebanon’s Odaisseh after spotting Hezbollah operatives there.