What do we know about the death of the Hezbollah commander killed by Israel in Lebanon?

Israel continues to persecute Hezbollah leaders. A local commander of the Lebanese movement was killed in the south of the country on Tuesday, according to the Israeli army. An Israeli army plane “destroyed Ismail Youssef Baz, commander of Hezbollah’s coastal sector,” she said in a statement.

What do we know about the circumstances of his death?

According to the Israeli army, Ismail Youssef Baz was killed in the strike in Ain Ebel, a village located in southern Lebanon, about fifteen kilometers from the Israeli border. The Lebanese National News Agency (ANI), for its part, reported one death and two injuries as a result of an attack on a car in this village, without specifying the identity of the victim. Hezbollah, for its part, limited itself to announcing Baz’s death without further details.

Who was he?

According to the Israeli army, Ismail Youssef Baz was “an experienced senior official in Hezbollah’s military wing who held several positions.” The IDF claims that it was, among other things, involved in “planning the launch of rockets and anti-tank missiles into Israel (…)”. The Israeli army also accuses him of “organizing and planning various scenarios of terrorism against Israel.”

In what context did his death occur?

Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas on October 7, Hezbollah has carried out daily attacks on Israel to support its ally, the Palestinian Islamist movement. The Israeli army responds by increasingly bombing Lebanese territory and launching targeted attacks on Hezbollah officials. The latter, in particular, announced on Tuesday that it had launched “suicide drones” aimed “at launch sites Iron Dome (Israeli air defense system) and their personnel” in a village in the north of the country.

The violence comes after tensions peaked this weekend. On Saturday night, Iran launched an unprecedented attack on Israel using drones and missiles in response to an attack on its Damascus consulate attributed to Israel. At the same time, Hezbollah said it fired Katyusha rockets at Israeli military positions in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan, which struck several times in Lebanon.

More than six months of violence on the Lebanese side have killed 365 people, mostly Hezbollah fighters, as well as about 70 civilians, according to AFP. Ten soldiers and eight civilians were killed in northern Israel, according to the army. Tens of thousands of residents were forced to leave the area on both sides of the border.