The Israel-Hezbollah war continues spreading and expanding along the border region, as on Wednesday the Shia paramilitary group backed by Iran fired some 160 missiles into Israel after the IDF killed a top Hezbollah commander, Taleb Sami Abdullah, in south Lebanon the day prior.
According to details from a regional war correspondent, Hezbollah "fired missiles and rockets at two Israeli military bases in retaliation for the Israeli strike on a house about six miles from Israel's northern border, inside Lebanon, that killed Abdullah, 55, and three other Hezbollah officials who were meeting there."
The commander oversaw all of the group's military operations in the central area of the Lebanon-Israel border, Hezbollah later confirmed. He was so senior in the organization that he been active in fighting Israel even going back to the 1990s.
An Israeli military statement had confirmed his identity: "Israeli Airforce aircraft eliminated Sami Taleb Abdullah, the commander of the Nasr Unit in the Hezbollah terrorist organization, last night," the IDF announced Wednesday.
"This was part of a strike on a Hezbollah command and control center in the area of Jouaiyya in southern Lebanon, which was used to direct terrorist attacks against Israel from southeastern Lebanon in recent months."
The IDF and Israeli media pointed out, "Abdullah was one of Hezbollah's most senior commanders in southern Lebanon who planned, advanced, and carried out a large number of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians."
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the military is preparing an "extremely powerful" response to the continuing onslaught of Hezbollah attacks, which days ago resulted in dozens of fires across northern Israel.
The past week has also witnessed Israel's war cabinet take part in active discussion over whether to mobilize reserve forces, and whether the northern front should be expanded and an official war declaration made.
Some 80,000 Israeli residents of the north have remained forcibly evacuated from their homes since Oct.7, given the constant threat of missiles and drones from Lebanon. This is putting further political pressure on the war cabinet to act.
