BEIRUT: Hezbollah said it fired more than 100 rockets at Israeli positions on Wednesday in retaliation for a strike that killed a senior commander in Lebanon, the movement’s second such loss in recent weeks.

“A Hezbollah commander responsible for one of three sectors in south Lebanon was killed” in an “Israeli strike on a car in Tyre”, a source close to the group said.

The group said that “commander Mohammed Naameh Nasser”, also known as “Hajj Abu Naameh” had been killed, and also announced the death of a second fighter.

The Israeli army said in a statement that it “eliminated” Nasser, saying he was “the commander of Hezbollah’s Aziz Unit which is responsible for firing from southwestern Lebanon at Israeli territory”.

In a statement, Hezbollah said that “as part of the response to the attack and assassination that the enemy carried out” in south Lebanon’s Tyre, its fighters attacked two positions in the Israeli-annexed Syrian Golan Heights “with 100 Katyusha rockets”. The group also claimed another retaliatory attack with “Falaq rockets” on a base in northern Israel.

An Israeli military spokesperson said that about 100 rocket launches had been made towards Israel from Lebanon.

‘Prevent a conflagration’

The source close to Hezbollah 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.

A second source close to Hezbollah said Nasser was the third senior Hezbollah commander to be killed in almost nine months of hostilities.

In January, a security source said an Israeli strike killed Wissam Hassan Tawil, another top commander from the group. Nasser’s death followed a relative easing of cross-border exchanges over the past week, after threats on both sides had intensified.

Hezbollah announced a series of other attacks on Israeli troops and positions near the border on Wednesday, while Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli attacks in other parts of south Lebanon.

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, French President Emmanuel Macron urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prevent a “conflagration” between Israel and Hezbollah.

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

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2024