A senior Hezbollah commander was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Southern Lebanon on Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces said on Wednesday.
Hussain Ibrahim Mekky was killed near Tyre on the Mediterranean coast, located around 12 miles north of the Israeli border. He was a senior field commander for the Iranian terrorist proxy on the southern front, who had previously served as commander of Hezbollah forces in the coastal region.
🔴ELIMINATED: Hussain Ibrahim Mekky, a senior field commander in Hezbollah, was eliminated overnight by an IAF aircraft strike.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 15, 2024
Mekky was responsible for various acts of terrorism against the Israeli home front, and he previously served as the commander of Hezbollah's forces in… pic.twitter.com/jBV7Q7kmzf
Mekky “was responsible for the planning and execution of numerous terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and territory since the start of the war,” according to the IDF.
Emergency responders said two others were wounded in the strike, according to Reuters.
Overnight Tuesday, IAF fighter jets intercepted two drones approaching Israeli territory from the east. The aircraft did not enter Israeli airspace, according to the military.
The Iran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it had launched two drones at Eilat.
The umbrella group of Iranian-backed radical Shi’ite militias in Iraq is composed of Kata’ib Hezbollah, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhadaa. The group has claimed numerous drone attacks on Israel since the start of the war.
Also on Tuesday, a Hezbollah anti-tank missile killed an Israeli civilian and wounded five soldiers in the northern community of Adamit, according to the IDF.
The military said one soldier was moderately wounded and four others lightly hurt in the attack.
On Monday, four Israeli soldiers were wounded, one moderately, by Hezbollah anti-tank fire from Lebanon. Two missiles hit Kibbutz Yiftah, south of Kiryat Shmona in the Upper Galilee.
Last week, the IDF announced the death of Staff Sgt. Haim Sabach, 20, who was killed by a Hezbollah missile at a military post near the northern kibbutz of Malkia.
Days earlier, two reserve soldiers were killed in a Hezbollah drone attack on a military position close to the northwestern Galilee town of Metula. The IDF said it had failed to intercept the explosive-laden drone.
Hezbollah has carried out near-daily attacks on northern Israel since joining the war against the Jewish state in support of Hamas following the Gaza-based terrorist group’s massacre of some 1,200 people in the northwestern Negev on Oct. 7.
Israel has threatened a major military offensive in southern Lebanon to push Hezbollah north of the Litani River—some 18 miles from the border—if a diplomatic solution is not found.
Efforts to calm tensions, including those of the United States and France, have so far been unsuccessful.
