2024-02-16 01:52:38
On Thursday, the Israeli army was able to kill a leader in the Lebanese Hezbollah, Ali Al-Debs, the commander of the party’s Radwan forces.
The army said in a statement on Thursday that it killed a central commander in the Radwan forces affiliated with Hezbollah, Al-Debs, his deputy, Ibrahim Issa, and another terrorist, as he put it.
He explained that Al-Debs was killed in “a precise air strike carried out by an army plane on a Hezbollah military facility in Nabatieh.”
On the eighth of this month, Al-Debs was seriously injured as a result of an Israeli drone strike on his car on a main street in Nabatieh, according to a security source who spoke to Agence France-Presse.
Since the day after the attack launched by Hamas on Israel on October 7, Hezbollah has announced the targeting of Israeli military sites and points in support of Gaza and “in support of its resistance.” The Israeli army responds with air and artillery bombardment, which it says targets the party’s “infrastructure” and the movements of fighters near the border.
How was it founded?
Reports published by Agence France-Presse and the newspaper “Washington PostThe Radwan Force is an “elite unit” in Hezbollah.
During the past year, the Radwan Unit presented a military parade to analysts and foreign correspondents, where they were given a tour of one of their training camps in southern Lebanon, according to the newspaper.
The Radwan unit was created to “launch attacks and raids on Israel,” according to what an official close to Hezbollah told the newspaper, and it is likely that it participated in the fighting along the Lebanese-Israeli border the day after the October 7 attack.
Israeli officials have long expected this unit to be at the forefront of any attack launched by Hezbollah inside Israel.
Israel estimates the number of members of this unit at thousands, and it aims to invade the Galilee region, according to a previous video clip by the Israeli army, according to the newspaper.
The army indicates that the Radwan unit is “deployed along the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon,” referring to the border monitored by United Nations peacekeeping forces, where the unit carries out the tasks of “monitoring northern Israel and gathering information.”
The unit was initially established, in 2006, under the name “Intervention Unit,” and in 2008, it was renamed in honor of the party’s leader, Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a joint Israeli-American operation, as Mughniyeh used the nom de guerre “Radwan.” After an angel guarding the sky.
The Radwan Force earned the name “Elite Unit” due to its “performance in the brutal fight to reclaim territory in Lebanon and Syria from ISIS control.”
An official close to the group told the newspaper that the members of this unit fought “in difficult conditions: in the desert, mountains, and snow…that is why their training is at a higher level, and their experience is better.”
The Radwan Force had deployed its units in Aleppo in 2016, and fought alongside the Hezbollah movement and Al-Nujaba against ISIS. In May 2017, its forces were withdrawn and redeployed to southern Lebanon and were placed on high alert, according to the “AON Hezbollah” organization. God”.
Highly trained and heavily armed, the Radwan Unit—Hezbollah’s elite special forces—pose an imminent threat toward Israel’s northern border. pic.twitter.com/Cem12Li4IS
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) January 17, 2024
Who leads the “Al-Ridwan Force”?
The Israeli army says that the supreme commander of the Radwan Force is Haitham al-Tabtabai, a leader in Hezbollah who supports the efforts of their forces in Syria and Yemen.
In 2016, the US State Department added Al-Tabtabai to the terrorist list, and offered a reward of up to $5 million for information about him, due to his destabilizing role and providing equipment and weapons to militias in the region.
On January 8, Israel previously targeted the party’s leader, Wissam Al-Tawil, while he was driving his car in his town of Khirbet Salam, which led to his death.
The researcher from the Control Risks Center, Dina Araqji, told AFP in particular about the “Radwan” force, which is considered the elite force in Hezbollah in terms of readiness and quality of weapons.
Since 2006, Hezbollah has not had any visible military presence in the Lebanese border region, under Resolution 1701, which prohibited any armed presence in the region, except for the Lebanese army and the United Nations force operating in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli army announces the killing of a commander in the “Radwan Force”
The Israeli army confirmed Thursday that it had been killed in a raid on Lebanese Hezbollah leader Ali Al-Debs and two other of his aides a day earlier in Lebanon.
But Hezbollah has built hideouts and tunnels through which its members move, some of which cross borders. At the end of 2018, Israel announced the destruction of tunnels it accused the party of digging across the border.
Arakji says that the tunnels are an old strategy followed by Hezbollah, and it is likely that the network is “extensive.”
The United States has designated Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization since October 1997 and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity under Executive Order No. 13224 in October 2001, according to the Department of Defense. Cabinet American.
Fears of the risk of escalation
The Lebanese-Israeli border witnesses a daily exchange of bombing between Hezbollah and Israel
Since the start of the escalation, 263 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 185 Hezbollah members and 40 civilians, including three journalists, according to a tally compiled by Agence France-Presse. In Israel, the army counted the deaths of ten soldiers and six civilians.
The exchange of bombings raises local and international fears of a widening scope of escalation. Western officials have recently visited Beirut, where they are urging restraint, avoiding additional escalation at the border, and pushing for diplomatic solutions, according to Agence France-Presse.
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned, on Thursday, “the prolonged Israeli aggression against southern Lebanon and the new massacres… against citizens.” He asked the Lebanese Foreign Ministry to submit an urgent complaint against Israel to the UN Security Council.
The spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Andrea Tenenti, called in a statement to “intensify diplomatic efforts to restore stability and preserve the safety of civilians,” considering that “attacks targeting civilians are considered violations of international law and constitute war crimes.”
The United Nations, in addition to the United States and France, called on Wednesday to stop the escalation and prevent the conflict from expanding after the Israeli raids.
The Israeli army targets a Hezbollah military leader in southern Lebanon
On Thursday, a Hezbollah military official was “seriously” injured as a result of an Israeli strike that targeted his car in the city of Nabatieh, in southern Lebanon, according to what a security source told Agence France-Presse.
Hezbollah, the arch enemy of Israel, with which it is engaged in daily confrontations in the wake of the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, has a huge weapons arsenal, although its exact size is not known, but it has developed and expanded over the past years, according to Agence France-Presse.
The party mainly receives money and weapons from Iran, and Syria facilitates the transfer of its weapons and ammunition.
It has greatly strengthened its arsenal, especially after the devastating July 2006 war it fought with Israel. It also strengthened its combat capabilities due to its participation since 2013 in the conflict in Syria alongside the Syrian regime forces.
Hezbollah announced on several occasions that it now possesses several advanced weapons and missiles capable of reaching deep into Israel.
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