The Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that Fatah terrorist Khalil Makdah was killed in an airstrike near the coastal city of Sidon in Southern Lebanon earlier in the day.
He was the brother of Mounir al-Makdah, a resident of Lebanon whom Jerusalem accuses of operating on behalf of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Tehran’s Lebanese terror proxy Hezbollah to advance terror attacks against Israel.
The drone strike targeted Makdah’s car in an upscale neighborhood in the city.
Khalil Makdah was an official with the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah faction, and Mounir is a senior official with the political party chaired by P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas, AFP reported, quoting a senior member of the Fatah movement and citing a security source.
The “assassination of a Fatah official is further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full-scale war in the region,” Tawfik Tirawi, a member of Fatah’s central committee, told AFP.
It marks the first Israeli attack on Fatah in over 10 months of war.
“The two collaborate on behalf of the IRGC and are involved in the direction of terror attacks as well as the smuggling of weapons and funds designated for terrorist activities into Judea and Samaria,” the IDF said.
The strike was a joint operation involving the Israel Security Agency and the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate.
The IDF and ISA released a statement according to which last March, it was revealed that weapons were being smuggled into Judea and Samaria and distributed to terror cells recruited and directed by Khalil and Mounir’s terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon.
The officials responsible for the direction and execution of the smuggling and attacks are Iranian, the statement continued. The operation is led by Jawad Jaafari, head of Unit 4000, a special operations unit in the IRGC’s intelligence wing, alongside Ashgar Bakari, commander of Unit 840, a special operations unit in the IRGC Quds Force.
“The IDF and ISA are operating to identify and thwart attempts to smuggle Iranian weapons into Judea and Samaria and the terrorist cells that are recruited by Iranian officials and their proxies,” according to the statement.
“The IDF and ISA will constantly continue to take action to monitor and thwart activity that endangers the safety of the State of Israel and its citizens, in order to expose and impair Iranian attempts to carry out terrorist activity against the State of Israel.”
