The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Saturday that it had killed two senior Hamas terrorists operating in Lebanon, including one who had been based in the northern Lebanon city of Tripoli, on the Mediterranean coast.
In a joint statement, the IDF and Israel Security Agency (ISA, or Shin Bet, or Shabak) said:
Earlier today (Saturday), in a joint IDF and ISA operation, the IAF struck and eliminated the terrorist Muhammad Hussein Ali al-Mahmoud, who served as Hamas’ executive authority in Lebanon and directed terrorist activities in Judea and Samaria.
In recent years, Muhammad advanced terrorist activities against Israelis both inside and outside of the State of Israel. He was also responsible for Hamas’ entrenchment inside Lebanon, using it to supply weapons for rocket attacks against Israel and in attempts to manufacture advanced weaponry.
In an additional IDF and ISA operation overnight (Saturday) in the area of Tripoli in Lebanon, the terrorist Said Alaa Naif Ali, a senior member of Hamas’ Military Wing in Lebanon, was eliminated. Said carried out terrorist attacks against Israeli targets and worked to recruit Hamas operatives inside Lebanon.
The IDF and ISA conducted these operations as part of efforts to target Hamas wherever they pose a threat to the citizens of Israel. These operations constitute a blow to Hamas’ ability to carry out terror activities against the State of Israel from Lebanese territory.
The strike in Tripoli reportedly marked Israel’s northernmost strike during the Third Lebanon War.
In addition, the IDF reported that it had killed 440 Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon in the five days of its ground offensive thus far, including 30 commanders.
Israel has lost 12 soldiers since the start of the campaign, including 2 killed in a drone strike launched by Shiite militias in Iraq against an Israeli base in the Golan Heights.
There is no confirmation yet of the death of Hassan Nasrallah’s reported successor to lead Hezbollah, Hashim Safa a-Din, who was targeted earlier this week in an airstrike on a Hezbollah bunker in the Dahiyeh neighborhood of Beirut. Israel continued to strike Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh, as residents continued to evacuate. The IDF has also told the residents of several villages in the Bekaa Valley — long a Hezbollah haven — to evacuate.
Elsewhere, Israel confirmed that at least 12 of the 18 people killed in an airstrike this week on the West Bank city of Tulkarm were terrorists.
The IDF told residents of the central Gaza city of Nuseirat — one of the only areas the IDF has not attacked — to evacuate, following the firing of several rockets from Gaza toward Israeli cities, the first such attacks in several weeks.
Update: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video on Saturday night, telling Israelis that the IDF had begun to change the security situation in the north of the country, as he had promised.
He said that in addition to killing Nasrallah, Israel had begun dismantling Hezbollah’s Radwan forces, which had planned an attack much greater in scale than that which Hamas had carried out nearly a year ago on October 7.
Netanyahu added that Israel would answer all attacks from its enemies, including the unprecedented ballistic missile attack from Iran, adding that no country in the would would tolerate it. He said that Israel would never forget the soldiers who had fallen thus far in defense of the country and its people, and emphasized the need to return all of the Israeli hostages home from Gaza.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Photo: file
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