The Israeli army has claimed that it killed Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil along with other group leaders in a strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday.
“Earlier today, warplanes carried out a precise raid in the Beirut area, under the guidance of the Military Intelligence Service, and eliminated Ibrahim Aqil, the head of Hezbollah’s operations system and the actual commander of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force,” the army’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a statement.
“In the strike, Aqill and senior leaders in the Operations Command and the Radwan Force were eliminated, it added.
Later, an Israeli military spokesperson put the number of the senior Hezbollah commanders killed in the strike at 10.
The spokesperson said that Aqil and the commanders were “the masterminds of and the force behind Hezbollah’s plan to execute an attack on northern Israel.”
“As part of this plan, Hezbollah intended to infiltrate Israel, seize control of the communities in the Galilee, and to kill and kidnap Israeli civilians, much like Hamas did on October 7.”
THE NATIONAL
