Top Hezbollah commander killed in his car by precision Israeli airstrike

Israel has confirmed it killed a senior Hezbollah commander in an airstrike in south Lebanon, the second such assassination in recent weeks.

Hezbollah said that “commander Mohammed Naameh Nasser”, also known as “Hajj Abu Naameh” had been killed in a strike on a car in Tyre and also announced the death of a second fighter. The Israeli military confirmed it was responsible for the airstrike.

Iran-backed Hezbollah has traded near daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct 7, triggering war in Gaza, but an uptick in bellicose rhetoric from both sides in recent weeks has raised fears of an all-out war.

Hezbollah responded to the killing by firing 100 rockets at Israel.

Nasser is the third senior Hezbollah commander to be killed in almost nine months of hostilities.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said “an enemy drone targeted a car” in Tyre, a coastal city about 12 miles from the border.

The first source said Nasser had the same rank as Taleb Abdallah, a commander killed in an Israeli strike last month who was described by a Lebanese military source at the time as the “most important” Hezbollah commander killed to date.

That strike prompted Hezbollah to intensify its attacks on Israeli targets, firing barrages of rockets across the border in the days that followed.

In January, a security source said an Israeli strike killed Wissam Hassan Tawil, another top commander from the group.

Hezbollah announced a series of attacks on Israeli troops and positions near the border on Wednesday, while the NNA reported Israeli attacks in other parts of south Lebanon.

The commander’s death followed a relative easing of cross-border exchanges over the past week, after threats on both sides had intensified.

Fears the violence, so far largely restricted to the border area, could turn into all-out war have sparked a flurry of diplomatic efforts to lower tensions.

On Tuesday, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, urged Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to prevent a “conflagration” between Israel and Hezbollah.

Amos Hochstein, the US envoy who has made repeated visits to Lebanon in recent months, was due in Paris on Wednesday where he was expected to meet with Jean-Yves Le Drian, Mr Macron’s Lebanon envoy.

On Saturday, Iran warned that “all resistance fronts” would confront Israel if it attacks Lebanon.

Last week, Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, said his country did not want war in Lebanon but could send it back to the “Stone Age” if diplomacy failed.

Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of Hezbollah, warned in June that “no place” in Israel would be spared in the event of all-out war, and threatened nearby Cyprus if it opened its airports to Israel.

The cross-border violence has killed at least 495 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also 95 civilians, according to AFP, while Israeli authorities have said at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed.