Israel Confirms Killing Hezbollah’s Top Rocket Commander in Beirut Airstrike

Jerusalem, 24 September, 2024 (TPS) -- The commander of Hezbollah’s missile and rocket array, Ibrahim Muhammad Kabis, was killed in an airstrike in Beirut on Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Tuesday.

Kabisi was meeting with other Hezbollah commanders in a building in the city’s Dahieh district, a stronghold of the Iran-backed terror group.

Kabisi joined Hezbollah in the 1980s, and since then held a series of key military positions in the organization, including being a senior in operations in southern Lebanon and commanding the ‘Badr’ unit on the southern front.

According to the IDF, Kabisi was responsible for an attack in 2000 in which three soldiers on patrol in a border area near Har Dov were abducted and killed. The bodies of Staff Sergeants Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Souad were eventually returned in a 2004 prisoner exchange along with Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was lured to Dubai and then kidnapped in 2000. Israel released 400 Palestinian prisoners and 30 Lebanese prisoners in the swap.

Air Force fighter squadrons conducted hundreds of sorties on Tuesday, deploying around 2,000 munitions aimed at approximately 1,500 Hezbollah-related targets across southern and deep Lebanon.

On Monday, Israel called on residents of southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley to flee homes where the Iran-backed Hezbollah stored missiles.

The IDF disclosed that Hezbollah was preparing to launch a cruise missile hidden inside a civilian home. The army released footage, including of the airstrike that destroyed it.

Sarit Zahavi, president and founder of the Alma Research Center, told The Press Service of Israel in August that Hezbollah doctrine makes extensive use of civilian homes.

“Hezbollah stores their weapons everywhere, both between villages and within the villages themselves,” she said.

“By and large, every third house in the Shi’ite villages of south Lebanon is used in some way by Hezbollah for military purposes, be it weapons storage, the entrance of a tunnel, or a launchpad for shooting rockets at Israel,” she explained.

Hezbollah’s use of civilian homes has triggered sectarian tensions as tens of thousands of Lebanese fled.

Residents of northern Israel were forced to evacuate their homes when Hezbollah began launching rockets and drones in October. The terror group has launched more than 6,700 rockets and drones, killing 26 civilians and 22 soldiers on the Israeli side.

Hezbollah leaders have said they will continue the attacks to prevent Israelis from returning to their homes, which Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah reiterated in a speech on Thursday night.

Israeli officials have been calling for Hezbollah to be disarmed and removed from southern Lebanon in compliance with UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War.