On Tuesday evening, Israel launched an airstrike that killed Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut, Lebanon. This got here hours earlier than the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, which the Palestinian group has blamed on Israel.
Hezbollah confirmed Shukr’s dying within the airstrike late Wednesday, a day after Israel claimed to have killed the Hezbollah chief.
This is what we find out about Shukr and why it was thought-about a chief goal by Israel.
Who was Fuad Shukr?
“Shukr was certainly one of a number of veteran Hezbollah officers who have been among the many founders of the group’s navy wing,” stated Nicholas Blanford, a Hezbollah professional on the Atlantic Council suppose tank.
“They’ve at all times lived within the shadows,” he stated of the group’s navy leaders. Israeli navy officers, nevertheless, described Shukr as a detailed adviser to Hezbollah Secretary-Common Hassan Nasrallah and a person accountable for acquiring the majority of the group’s most superior weapons, “together with precision-guided missiles, cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, long-range rockets and unmanned aerial autos.”
Shukr was a outstanding pal of former Hezbollah navy commander Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed by Israel in Damascus in 2008, after which Shukr’s prominence inside the group rose, Hezbollah stated.
Why is Israel focusing on him now?
In line with Israeli navy strategists, Shukr was accountable for the missile assault that killed 12 kids enjoying soccer in Majdal Shams within the occupied Golan Heights on Saturday. Hezbollah, for its half, denied accountability for the assault.
The strike proved to be a flashpoint inside Israeli politics when a delegation of Israeli ministers trying to go to the funerals of a number of the murdered kids (after ignoring a request not to take action) was verbally assaulted by villagers mourning the lack of the kids.
On Monday, Israel’s Safety Council licensed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Protection Minister Yoav Gallant to take no matter measures they deem applicable.
How was Shukr killed?
On the time of the assault, Shukr was within the Haret Hreik district of Daniya, a southern suburb of Beirut.
A Hezbollah assertion stated that “the nice jihadist commander, Brother Fuad Shukr (Hajj Mohsen) was current” within the constructing attacked by “the Zionist enemy.”
Pictures of the constructing after the assault present intensive harm, with particles cascading down onto the road. Lebanon’s well being ministry confirmed that three civilians, together with two kids, had been killed and 74 wounded in what Israel characterised as its “intelligence-based elimination.”
What was Shukr’s historical past with Hezbollah?
Shukr, also referred to as al-Hajj Mohsen, was born in Nabatieh in Baalbek, japanese Lebanon.
Twenty years later, he was one of many founders of Hezbollah following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Shukr maintained his position inside the group all through the Eighties, and was accused by the USA of overseeing the bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983, when he was in his early 20s.
In line with the Israeli navy, Shukr oversaw quite a few assaults in opposition to the Israeli navy and its former ally, the South Lebanon Military (SLA), over the next decade.
In 2000, Israeli officers accused him of orchestrating the kidnapping and homicide of three Israeli troopers throughout a Hezbollah assault within the Shebaa Farms area, the small strip of land on the intersection of Syria, Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, whose sovereignty stays disputed.
Along with being wished by Israel, Shukr was additionally wished by the USA. A posting on the U.S. authorities’s Rewards for Justice web site gives a fee of as much as $5 million for data on Shukr, after naming him a “Specifically Designated International Terrorist” in 2019.
What have been the reactions to Shukr’s homicide?
In X, Gallant wrote in English: “Fuad Shukr ‘Sayyid’ Muhsan has the blood of many Israelis on his arms. Tonight we’ve got proven that the blood of our folks has a worth and that there isn’t any place past the attain of our forces to realize it.”
Tonight, the IDF carried out a exact {and professional} operation to get rid of Hezbollah’s highest-ranking navy commander.
Fuad Shukr ‘Sayyid’ Muhsan has his arms stained with the blood of many Israelis. Tonight we’ve got proven that the blood of our folks has a worth and that there’s nothing to be carried out…
— יואב גלנט – Yoav Gallant (@yoavgallant) July 30, 2024
In Lebanon, Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the “blatant Israeli aggression” and described the killing as a “prison act” in a “collection of aggressive operations killing civilians in clear and specific violation of worldwide regulation.”
UN Particular Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert expressed deep concern over the assault and confused “as soon as once more that there isn’t any navy resolution” to the continued battle, in keeping with an announcement.
In Washington, White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre informed reporters that US President Joe Biden had argued {that a} wider struggle between Israel and Hezbollah might be prevented, saying: “We don’t wish to see an escalation, we don’t wish to see an all-out struggle.”
