Lebanon’s Hezbollah has been suffering devastating blows in recent days, as its leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday (September 27), leading to a rapid escalation of tensions in the Middle East. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Sunday (September 29) that another senior Hezbollah official was killed in an airstrike on Saturday (September 28).
The official killed on Saturday by the IDF was Nabil Kaouk, the commander of Hezbollah’s Prevention Security Service and deputy head of the Hezbollah Central Committee. The IDF did not provide detailed information on the location of the airstrike. Hezbollah has not yet commented on the IDF’s claims.
According to the IDF, Kaouk was believed to be “close to the senior ranks of Hezbollah” and had been directly involved in promoting attacks targeting “Israel and Israeli citizens” in recent days.
Kaouk’s death undoubtedly dealt a further blow to Hezbollah. In recent weeks, several senior Hezbollah commanders have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, including founding members of the organization. For decades, they had successfully evaded external pursuit and assassination attempts, and had close ties to Nasrallah himself.
Kaouk was a veteran member of Hezbollah dating back to the 1980s. During the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, he served as the military commander of the organization in southern Lebanon. He often appeared in local media, commenting on political and security developments, and delivering eulogies at the funerals of senior armed militants.
In October 2020, the United States designated Kaouk as a global terrorist, stating that he participated in activities commemorating deceased Hezbollah terrorists and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qasem Soleimani. In January 2020, Soleimani was killed in a drone strike ordered by the US.
Hezbollah continues to launch rockets and missiles towards northern Israel, but most of them are intercepted or fall in uninhabited areas, resulting in minor casualties and sporadic damage.
In a statement, the IDF said that on Sunday, approximately eight shells were fired from Lebanon into Israel.
These shells landed in open areas near the city of Tiberias in northern Israel. Last year, thousands of Israelis were evacuated from communities near the Lebanon border to Tiberias, leading to a 20% increase in the city’s population.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023, triggering the Gaza War. Since October 8, Hezbollah has begun launching rockets, missiles, and drones towards northern Israel in protest of the Gaza War.
Hezbollah and Hamas are allies and are seen as part of the Iran-backed anti-Israel “Axis of Resistance.”
In response to the attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas, Israel has conducted wave after wave of airstrikes, causing international concern that the conflict may gradually spread throughout the entire Middle East region.