Hezbollah confirms killings of 2 more leaders in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon
CBC
Hezbollah has confirmed the death of high-ranking official Nabil Kaouk in an Israeli airstrike, the seventh senior commander killed in just over a week.
The Israeli military earlier said it had killed Kaouk in a strike in a southern Beirut suburb on Saturday.
Kaouk was deputy head of Hezbollah's Central Council. He also served as Hezbollah's military commander in south Lebanon from 1995 until 2010.
He was the seventh senior leader of the Lebanon-based Shia militant group to be killed since Sept. 20. They include Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's top leader for more than three decades.
Senior Hezbollah commander Ali Karaki also died in the airstrike that killed Nasrallah in Beirut on Friday, Hezbollah confirmed Sunday.
The several senior Hezbollah commanders killed in recent weeks include founding members who had evaded death or detention for decades and were close to Nasrallah himself.
A strike by fighter jets killed Kaouk in the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut late Saturday, said the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
In 2020, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Kaouk and another member of Hezbollah's council, Hassan al-Baghdadi.
Kaouk has been a Hezbollah member since the 1980s, serving as Hezbollah's military commander in southern Lebanon during the 2006 war with Israel.
He often appeared in local media, commenting on politics and security developments, and gave eulogies at the funerals of senior militants. The United States announced sanctions against him in 2020.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel after Hamas's Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. Hezbollah and Hamas are allies that consider themselves part of an Iran-backed Axis of Resistance against Israel.
Israel has responded with waves of airstrikes, and the conflict has steadily ratcheted up to the brink of all-out war, raising fears of a region-wide conflagration.
Israel said it is determined to return some 60,000 of its citizens to communities in the north that were evacuated nearly a year ago. Hezbollah has said it will only halt its rocket fire if there is a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza that began Oct. 7. A ceasefire has proven elusive despite months of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas led by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
Hezbollah has also been targeted by a sophisticated attack on its pagers and walkie-talkies that was widely blamed on Israel. A wave of Israeli airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon has killed at least 1,030 people — including 156 women and 87 children — in under two weeks, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.
