BEIRUT/JERUSALEM – A senior military commander of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli drone strike in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, according to a Lebanese security source on Tuesday.
The source told Xinhua that “an Israeli drone fired an air-to-ground missile at a civilian vehicle … in (the village of) Qa’qaiyat al-Jisr, killing one person and setting the car ablaze.”
The body, transported by civil defense teams to a hospital in Nabatieh, was identified as a Hezbollah military commander named Hassan Kamal Halawi, the unnamed source said.
However, Lebanon’s Public Health Emergency Operations Center said in a statement that the dead person was “a civilian, according to initial reports.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli military confirmed that it launched a drone strike last night in Nabatieh and killed Halawi, whom it identified as chief of Hezbollah’s anti-tank unit in southern Lebanon.
The military said in a statement that “Halawi, during the war, was responsible for numerous terror attacks against the State of Israel. He facilitated the movement of operatives and weapons into southern Lebanon,” claiming that “in recent months, Halawi continued to engage in terrorist activity against Israeli civilians.”
XINHUA
