IDF hits Hezbollah arms routes, top smuggler

The Israel Defense Forces struck four border crossings on the Syria-Lebanon frontier used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons and killed a senior arms dealer for the Iranian terrorist proxy near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on Wednesday, Israel’s military said.

The attacks on the border crossings took place in the mostly Shi’ite Hermel area along the Syria-Lebanon border.

Earlier on Wednesday in the Sidon area, the IDF killed Muhammad Awasha, describing him as a key Hezbollah weapons dealer and smuggler.

Awasha managed weapons transfers to Hezbollah through a shell company that ordered prohibited goods from countries including Iraq, Syria and Gulf states, and oversaw many smugglers moving arms from Iraq to Syria and Lebanon, the army said.

Also on Wednesday, the IDF said that it carried out airstrikes on Hezbollah infrastructure across several areas of Southern Lebanon, targeting weapons storage facilities and an underground arms depot embedded in the middle of civilian neighborhoods and used to turn residents into human shields.

“Hezbollah’s activities at these sites, intended to reestablish its capabilities, constitute a violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon, and pose a threat to the State of Israel,” the IDF said, adding that it “will continue to operate to remove any threat to the State of Israel.”

In a separate statement on Thursday, the military said that, in recent months, it eliminated 10 Hezbollah operatives who served as liaisons between the terrorist group and the population of Southern Lebanon.

“These operatives served as Hezbollah’s executive arm on the ground, deliberately exploiting the civilian population by embedding terror infrastructure in populated areas, seizing private property, and enabling the transfer of weapons and operatives,” according to the IDF statement.

The military noted that the activity of Hezbollah’s operatives constituted a violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon.