Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border intensified on Tuesday following a series of Israeli drone and artillery strikes that killed two high-ranking militants, including a Hezbollah commander and a senior figure in the Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya.
Avichay Adraee, the Israeli army’s Arabic-speaking spokesperson, confirmed that the strike eliminated a Hezbollah commander in the Majdel Zoun compound in southern Lebanon. He said the operation was a direct hit, though the commander’s name was not immediately disclosed.
Earlier on Tuesday, an Israeli drone targeted a pickup truck and a motorcycle on the road leading to the town of Henniye in the Tyre district. The strike resulted in the commander’s death.
In a separate incident, an Israeli drone strike in the Baawarta area near Damour killed Hussein Izzat Atwi, a senior leader in Jamaa Islamiya, a Sunni Islamist group allied with Hamas and part of the so-called “Axis of Resistance.”
Atwi, born in 1968 in Hebbariyeh in the Hasbaya-Marjayoun region, was a professor at the Lebanese University and reportedly a key figure in the group’s armed wing, Quwat al-Fajr (Forces of Dawn). His vehicle, which was struck near Lebanese army barracks, burst into flames upon impact.
This was not the first attempt on Atwi's life. He previously survived an Israeli assassination attempt in January 2024 near the southern village of Kawkaba.
Israeli forces also carried out additional operations across southern Lebanon. A drone dropped a stun grenade on the town of Kfar Kila, while an Israeli helicopter released a similar device in the center of Aita al-Shaab, in the Bint Jbeil district. Meanwhile, Israeli artillery shelled the outskirts of Shebaa.
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