Factbox-Israel’s targeted killings in Lebanon since Gaza war began
BEIRUT (Reuters) – An Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital on Tuesday killed Fuad Shukr, identified by the Israeli military as Lebanese armed group Hezbollah’s most senior commander.
It was the latest in a string of targeted Israeli killings in Lebanon since October, when hostilities broke out between Hezbollah and Israel’s military in parallel with the Gaza war.
Israeli strikes have killed around 350 Hezbollah fighters in total since. The following is a list of the senior figures among those targeted.
FUAD SHUKR
Shukr has been one of Hezbollah’s leading military figures since it was established by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards more than four decades ago.
The United States accused Shukr of playing a central role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 U.S. military personnel, and had put a bounty of up to $5 million on his head, according to the U.S. government’s Rewards for Justice website.
He was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2015 over Hezbollah’s role in helping Syria’s army. Israel said he was the right-hand man of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and that he was responsible for an attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 youths. Hezbollah denied any role.
MOHAMMED NASSER
Nasser, a senior commander in Hezbollah, was responsible for a section of Hezbollah’s operations at the frontier, according to senior security sources in Lebanon.
He was killed in an Israeli airstrike on July 3. Israel claimed responsibility, saying he headed a unit responsible for firing from southwestern Lebanon at Israel.
TALEB ABDALLAH
Senior Hezbollah field commander Abdallah was killed on June 12 in a strike claimed by Israel, which said it had hit a command and control centre in southern Lebanon.
Security sources in Lebanon said he was Hezbollah’s commander for the central region of the southern border strip and was of the same rank as Nasser.
His killing prompted the group to fire a massive barrage of rockets across the border at Israel.
WISSAM TAWIL
Tawil, a commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces, was the first senior Hezbollah officer to be killed by Israel in the latest round of fighting.
He had been deployed with Hezbollah in Syria and Iraq, according to a senior source, and played a leading role in directing the group’s operations in the south since October.
Tawil and another Hezbollah fighter were killed on Jan. 8 when the car they were in was struck in a southern village. Israel later took responsibility for the strike.
SALEH AROURI
Arouri, the deputy chief of Palestinian armed group Hamas, was killed in a targeted strike on a Hamas office in the southern suburb of Beirut on Jan. 2.
It was the only other targeted killing on the edges of the capital since the exchanges of fire began in October.
While Lebanon’s prime minister, Hezbollah and other officials accused Israel, the Israeli military neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in his killing.
(Reporting by Maya Gebeily; Editing by Stephen Coates)
