.png)
Senior Hezbollah commander Wissam al-Tawil (L) with the terror group's chief Hassan Nasrallah in an undated photo. (Courtesy Times of Israel)
BEIRUT (CC) - The Christian Commander can now confirm that Israel's Defense Force killed Wissam al-Tawil, 48, a senior Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization commander. A fighter jet's missile mangled the SUV he was in.
On Monday January 8, before Israel's newest Foreign Minister Israel Katz's public confirmation came later in the daily news cycle, multiple sources reported that
al-Tawil was assassinated in the southern Lebanon village called Majdal Selm. The late Hezbollah senior commander was reportedly born in Khirbet Selm, a neighboring community.
Jerusalem's news outlets identified him as the top commander and official in the elite, clandestine Hezbollah unit called Radwan Force. They have been fiercely fighting against the IDF for over 100 days, attacking Israeli border communities and military posts nearly every day to support Gaza in the Israel-Hamas war that started on October 7, 2023.
Majdal Selm is about 6 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border, where ongoing and ever-intensifying fighting has ratcheted-up retaliations and reasons for locals in both nations to believe an official all-out Israel-Hezbollah war is very near.
“Neither side wants a war, but the two sides believe it is inevitable,” said Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. “Everybody in Israel thinks it’s just a matter of time until we need to change the reality,” he said, so that residents of the north can return to their homes.
Hezbollah and other Iran-backed sources, including Hamas and Yemen's Houthis, told Reuters that Israel had recently ratcheted up their strikes against the terror group in Syria.
“They used to fire warning shots – they’d hit near the truck, our guys would get out of the truck, and then they’d hit the truck. Now that’s over. Israel is now unleashing deadlier, more frequent air raids against Iranian arms transfers and air defense systems in Syria. They bomb everyone directly. They bomb to kill," a commander of the Iranian-led alliance said.
Hezbollah recently took responsibility for launching drone strikes against the IDF's northern army headquarters in retaliation for Israeli attacks in Lebanon.
Over nearly the last 20 years, the US has designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, along with their Shiite Muslim allies Hamas.
Last October, multiple Jerusalem sources reported that thousands of Hamas terrorists murdered some 1,200 and kidnapped over 240 hostages in southern Israel.
War crimes according to the UN's definition.
Israel almost immediately declared war against Hamas.
One day later, Hezbollah joined the fighting from Lebanon by launching notable long-range drone strikes against the IDF.
It is duly noted that not all nations or media outlets have designated the two different radical Muslim groups as terrorists, unlike the US government.
Pro-Palestinian, pro-Muslim, pro-Arab nations and news services tend to view them, and their allied militias such as Islamic Jihad and Iran's Revolutionary Guard, as righteous martyrs and fighters.
Thousands reportedly attended Mr. al-Tawil's funeral on the Tuesday afternoon after he was assassinated in Lebanon.
These are trying times.