Israel Takes Out 2nd Senior Hezbollah Commander In Less Than Two Weeks

Another senior Hezbollah commander has been killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. He was killed in a daytime strike on the coastal city of Tyre, in what appears a neighborhood or city area (according to widely circulating video).

Hezbollah in a statement confirmed the death Muhammad Nimah Nasser, also known as Abu Nimah. Regional reports say that he commanded Hezbollah’s Aziz regional division in southern Lebanon (one of three divisions operating there).

His high rank within the organization is confirmed in the fact that the Hezbollah statement referred to him as a “commander” – which it reserves for only the most senior level operatives.

With the situation already on edge, given both sides are warning that ‘all-out war’ could be imminent, the marks the second high commander that Israeli has killed in less than two weeks.

Last month a commander named Taleb Abdulla, who headed the Nasr regional division, was taken out in an Israeli strike. Before that, in January the deputy head of the elite Radwan unit Wissam al-Tawil was killed.

The Associated Press reports that “In a video circulated by local media, residents rushed toward a charred vehicle with a large plume of smoke. Civil Defense said its first responders transported an unnamed wounded person to a hospital.”

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has told troops during a visit Gaza border that tanks currently completing their tasks in Rafah and now being pulled from the theater can be deployed in the north where they “can reach as far as the Litani” river. The Lebanon river lies 10 miles north of Israel’s border. 

Major Israeli airstrike in Tyre #Lebanon kills senior Hezbollah commander Abu Ali Nasr, head of Aziz unit…Situation already on edge: pic.twitter.com/SyZnWLENmS

— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) July 3, 2024

“We are striking Hezbollah very hard every day and we will also reach a state of full readiness to take any action required in Lebanon, or to reach an arrangement from a position of strength,” Gallant said.

“We prefer an arrangement, but if reality forces us we will know how to fight,” the IDF chief continued. Israeli leaders have been under immense pressure to act more decisively against Hezbollah, given its daily rocket and drone attacks have meant some 80,000 to 100,000 Israeli residents of the north have been forced out of their homes for months, since near the beginning of the war last October.