Israeli forces on Monday killed Hezbollah's anti-tank missile commander, Muhammad Kamel Naeem, just days after his elite fighting brigade launched a lethal rocket attack on northern Israel that killed two civilians.
Naeem is the latest commander in Hezbollah's elite Radwan Forces to be eliminated by Israel, which has decimated the group's front-line leadership during a month of intensive ground and air operations across southern Lebanon and into Beirut. Even though Hezbollah's longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed last month, Israel continues to target the group's remaining senior commanders ahead of an expected strike on the terror group's masters in Iran.
Naeem was behind a spate of rocket attacks on northern and central Israel in recent months, including one last week that killed two civilians in the border town of Kiryat Shmona, the first casualties since fighting between the sides intensified last month.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Monday that Naeem was killed in an airstrike that also demolished Hezbollah's missile launchers.
"The launchers from which rockets were launched to the north and center of the country were attacked from the air," Israel's GLZ Radio quoted the IDF as saying.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, is scheduled to convene a security meeting later on Monday as the Jewish state plans its response to Iran's Oct. 1 ballistic missile attack, according to the Times of Israel.
Israeli forces also continue to target Hezbollah's infrastructure and are now reportedly focusing on the terror group's Unit 127, which manufactures suicide drones and other unmanned aerial systems that have set fire to large swaths of Israel's northern territories.
"The effort to kill every member of the unit will now take priority in terms of intelligence collection and airstrikes," the Times of Israel reported on Monday, citing military sources. Operations targeting Unit 127 kicked into high gear after a Hezbollah drone killed four soldiers and wounded dozens during a Sunday attack on Israel's Golani training base.
Israeli forces stationed along the border with Lebanon continue to discover Hezbollah tunnel systems, used to store weapons, medical supplies, and move militants into Israeli territory. Inside these bunkers, Israel has found "new weaponry" from Russian and Chinese sources, suggesting that Iran's top global allies are helping to fuel Hezbollah's war, according to the New York Post.
Videos from one of around 700 Hezbollah weapons depots discovered in southern Lebanon also showed items supplied by the United States Agency for International Development and the United Nations World Food Programme.
The appearance of these items indicates that, like Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah is diverting international humanitarian aid to fuel its war effort.
"The US must ensure that taxpayer funded aid is not distributed to US-designated terrorists, or their allies," said Yona Schiffmiller, the director of research at NGO Monitor, a watchdog group that monitors international aid efforts in the region. "It must demand that UN agencies and humanitarian [non-governmental organizations] apply rigorous vetting to all beneficiaries, particularly in areas controlled by terrorist organizations."
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