The Israeli military said Tuesday that it had killed a senior Hezbollah commander in an airstrike in Beirut, the latest blow in what appears to be a concerted Israeli attempt to take out the group’s leadership. Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the Israeli claim.
Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, identified the target as Ibrahim Mohammad Qobeisi, a senior Hezbollah commander who oversaw Hezbollah’s missile apparatus. The Israeli military says that Mr. Qobeisi planned the abduction of three Israeli soldiers in 2000; their bodies were later returned to Israel in a prisoner exchange.
Israel has stepped up efforts to assassinate Hezbollah’s top leaders in recent weeks as part of a campaign to compel the Iranian-backed militant group to stop firing rockets and drones at Israel. For nearly a year, Hezbollah has been attacking Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza, displacing tens of thousands of Israelis from border communities.
The campaign against the top echelon in Hezbollah comes after months of attacks that, Israeli military analysts said, have somewhat degraded Hezbollah’s military capabilities.
Over the past two months, Israel has killed at least two members of Hezbollah’s top military decision-making body, the Jihad Council, and tried to assassinate another.
In July, an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs killed Fuad Shukr, one of the leaders of Hezbollah’s military operations and a confidante of the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. That attack was a reprisal for a rocket attack from Lebanon that killed 12 children in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.
Last Friday, Israeli forces flattened a residential building in an airstrike targeting Ibrahim Aqeel, another top Hezbollah leader, alongside several other leaders of the group’s commando unit. At least 55 people were killed in the strike, including several children and other noncombatants.
And on Monday, Israel tried to assassinate a third member of the Jihad Council, Ali Karaki, with an airstrike in Beirut. Hezbollah has denied that Mr. Karaki was killed and has said he had been taken to a “safe place” in the wake of the strike.