The Israeli army continued its offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Saturday, targeting command centers, weapons caches and tunnels. According to the IDF, at least 440 Hezbollah terrorists have been killed since the start of ground operations last Monday. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said: “We must continue to exert pressure on Hezbollah and create additional and lasting damage to the enemy. Without respite and without allowing rest to the organization.”
The army announced that it had struck a Hezbollah command center set up in a mosque in Bint Jbeil, southern Lebanon, located within the Martyr Salah Ghandour hospital compound. The IDF claims that terrorists used this room “to plan and carry out terrorist acts against IDF troops and the State of Israel.”
Meanwhile, three people were lightly injured by the impact of a Hezbollah rocket in the Arab village of Deir al-Asad, in northern Israel.
Troops from the Commando Brigade and the elite Yahalom unit destroyed several Hezbollah tunnel shafts used by operators to approach the Israeli border. IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari showed video of a 250-meter-long tunnel discovered about 300 meters from the Israeli border. “These complexes were to be used by Hezbollah terrorists during a [éventuelle] attack on the communities of Galilee…yesterday we destroyed this tunnel,” he explained. Hezbollah claimed on Saturday that it was engaged in continued clashes with Israeli troops in the border area.
The IDF also announced it had killed two senior Hamas commanders in airstrikes in Lebanon. Saeed Atallah Ali, described as a field commander by Hamas, was killed near Tripoli. Mohammed Hussein al-Lawis, presented by the IDF as “the executive authority of Hamas in Lebanon”, was killed near the town of Saadnayel in the Bekaa Valley.
