After Friday’s airstrike eliminated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah alongside several of his top commanders, Israel has launched a hunt for the remainder of the Lebanon-based terror group’s leadership.
The Israeli military on Sunday announced the elimination of Hezbollah’s likely second-in-command, Nabil Qaouk. An Israeli airstrike “eliminated Nabil Qaouk, a high-ranking Hezbollah official and deputy to the organization’s designated secretary-general, the military announced Sunday,” the Israel Hayom newspaper reported.
“Media outlets sympathetic to Hezbollah reported that Qaouk had been killed in Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut. He served as the deputy to Safi Al-Din, who is positioned to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader who was eliminated on Friday,” the Israeli daily added.
The Jerusalem Post reported the details of Kaouk’s elimination:
Nabil Kaouk, chief of Hezbollah’s preventive security unit and a member of the terror group’s council, was eliminated by the IDF in Lebanon on Saturday, the military announced on Sunday.The strike was achieved by Israel Air Force jets guided by intelligence information, the IDF added.Close to Hezbollah’s top echelon, Kaouk had been responsible for the advancement of terror activities against Israeli territory and Israeli citizens, the military further noted.The IDF said Kaouk had enlisted into the ranks of the terror group in the 80s and had since filled various posts, including command roles in Lebanon’s south.
Most of the strikes targeting the Hezbollah command structure are concentrated around the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh in southern Beirut. The Israeli fighter jets are “carrying out precision strikes on Hezbollah targets in the group’s Beirut bastion of Dahieh,” Israel’s i24NEWS TV said Sunday.
There are reports of a follow-up airstrike on the Dahieh terrorist stronghold.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Sunday declared that it is carrying out military operations to “degrade and dismantle Hezbollah’s capabilities in Lebanon.”
“The IDF is continuing to strike terror targets belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon,” the military said in a press release Sunday. “Over the last few hours, IDF fighter jets struck Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon, including launchers directed toward Israeli territory, weapons storage facilities, and terrorist infrastructure sites.”
The body of Hezbollah chief Nasrallah was recovered on Sunday from the site of his bunker in southern Beirut. The corpse of the slain terrorist appears to be intact. According to Reuters, “sources said his body had no direct wounds and that it appeared the cause of death was blunt trauma from the force of the blast.”
The YNET reports:
The body of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been recovered from the site of an Israeli air attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs and is intact, a medical source and a security source told Reuters on Sunday.While Hezbollah’s statement on Saturday confirming Nasrallah’s death did not say how exactly he was killed nor when his funeral would be, the two sources said his body had no direct wounds and that it appeared the cause of death was blunt trauma from the force of the blast.(…)More than 80 bombs, with an average weight of one ton of explosive material per bomb, were dropped on the Hezbollah headquarters, which the bunker-busting munitions penetrated, though Israel has not confirmed the use of such bombs. Squadron 69 (“The Hammers”) led the attack in Operation New Order with its F-15I (“Thunder”) planes, which are considered the leading bombers of the IDF.According to the IDF, the attack was carried out while the top brass of Hezbollah was at its headquarters and engaged in coordinating terrorist activities against the citizens of the State of Israel.
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