Top Hezbollah commander Wissam Hassan Tawil has been killed in an attack targeting his car in southern Lebanon.
Tawil was the brother-in-law of the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.
The Lebanese group Hezbollah confirmed the killing in southern Lebanon, believed to have been carried out by Israel on Monday.
Wissam Tawil was reportedly a member of the group’s elite Radwan Force, and one of the most prominent Hezbollah figures to be killed in the current violence.
Israel’s military did not comment, but it did say it had hit Hezbollah targets in response to cross-border attacks.
The clashes have raised fears of a wider regional conflict.
Hezbollah is an Iran-backed group that wields considerable military and political power in Lebanon. It is designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the UK and other Western powers.
Its fighters have exchanged fire with Israeli forces almost every day along the border since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip on 7 October.
Israel’s Prime Minister told soldiers stationed on the border with Lebanon on Monday that he was determined to “do everything necessary to restore security to the north”.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that two people – whom it did not name – were killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted a car in the al-Dabsha area of Khirbet Selim at around 10:15 (08:15 GMT) on Monday.
The strike caused the vehicle to veer off the road and catch fire, it added.
Pictures from the scene showed the burned-out wreck of a car on a roadside.
Lebanese security sources said one of those killed in the strike was Wissam Tawil and that the other was also a Hezbollah fighter.
REUTERS
