The main target of the pinpoint strike was a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander, Faris Qasim.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
The IDF eliminated a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commander, Faris Qasim, in an airstrike on a vehicle on the Syria-Lebanon border Wednesday morning, along with three of his terrorist colleagues.
According to the IDF, Qasim was head of the operational planning division for both Syria and Lebanon and was a major recruiter of Palestinians into the ranks of the PIJ.
Reuters cited two security sources who said that three of those in the car were PIJ members, while the fourth was from Hezbollah.
The strike was carried out by an Israeli UAV on the Syrian side of a border checkpoint, they said, on the Beirut-Damascus highway. The car did not have weaponry inside.
In contrast, they said, several hours earlier, the IAF had struck a pickup truck near the Syria-Lebanon border that was carrying “military equipment.”
One of the sources said the cargo was a damaged rocket launcher that was being taken for repairs.
In the early afternoon, Lebanese media reported that Israeli jets had attacked targets in the western part of the Bekaa region, which is a Hezbollah stronghold located about 24 kilometers north of the Israeli border.
The airstrikes come three days after the IDF’s biggest attack on Hezbollah targets since the Israel-Hamas war began almost 11 months ago and Hezbollah immediately began firing rockets, missiles, UAVs and other airborne projectiles from Lebanon in a proclaimed effort to support their fellow Iranian proxies in the Gaza Strip.
Thousands of rocket launchers that were primed to fire at Israel’s north and center around 5:30 AM were destroyed in a preemptive strike by some 100 jets of the IAF.
Many of the tens of thousands of northern residents who were evacuated from their homes immediately after the war began and have been housed in hotels and other temporary quarters want the IDF to finally end their limbo by driving Hezbollah several miles away from the border, beyond the Litani River.
This demand is in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, which has never been implemented.
Tיe IDF has repeatedly said it is ready to open another front in the north if the political echelon orders it.
The United States is against such a move, concerned that it could widen the conflict immeasurably since Iran has threatened to jump in if its primary terror proxy is attacked full-on.
While visiting the northern border on Monday with U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Brown Jr., Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said, “We are very determined to continue hurting Hezbollah, eliminate more commanders and and deprive it of assets and capabilities – we are not stopping.”
“Hezbollah has more capabilities and the work is not yet complete,” he continued. “Our mission is clear – to return the residents of the north to their homes safely, and the IDF is working for this around the clock. We are determined to return [them] … as soon as possible.”