Middle East crisis: Israel says top Hezbollah commander Nabil Qaouk eliminated during airstrike in Beirut

The Israeli military on Sunday said another top leader of the Iran-backed armed outfit Hezbollah group has been eliminated amid the ongoing crisis in the Middle East region.

IDF said it had eliminated Hezbollah’s Preventative Security Unit Commander Nabil Qaouk.

He was eliminated during an airstrike in Beirut.

IDF posted on X: “ELIMINATED: The Commander of Hezbollah’s Preventative Security Unit and a member of their Executive Council, Nabil Qaouk, was eliminated in a precise IDF strike.”

“Qaouk was close to Hezbollah’s senior commanders and was directly engaged in terrorist attacks against the State of Israel and its citizens. He joined Hezbollah in the 1980s and was regarded as an important source of expertise in his field, having served as the Deputy Commander of the southern region on the Operational Council, Commander of the southern region and Deputy Commander of the Operational Council,” it said.

The IDF said it will continue to strike and eliminate the commanders within the Hezbollah terrorist organization and will act against anyone who threatens the citizens of the State of Israel.

Israel, earlier confirmed Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of Iran-backed Hezbollah militia group, was killed during an airstrike in Beirut.

The conflict between IDF and Hezbollah has intensified in recent times.

According to media reports, the Israeli airstrikes on the terror group this week left over 700 people dead in Lebanon.

Speaking from Beirut, Imran Riza, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Lebanon, said that for nearly a year, the country’s people – and especially those in the south – had “lived in fear” that the war in Gaza could come to them.

Today across Lebanon, thousands of people in rural communities previously unaffected by Israeli targeting of Hezbollah infrastructure have fled bombardment and widespread destruction that have claimed at least 700 lives, injured thousands and uprooted around 120,000 people “within mere hours”, he said, adding: “We are running into people that are saying, ‘What’s the way to Tripoli? How do we get to there?’”

The UN aid coordinator’s comments come amid increasingly intense exchanges of fire across the UN-patrolled line of separation between Lebanon and Israel since 7 October when war erupted in the Gaza Strip. Last week’s extraordinary targeting of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies left hundreds dead and signalled the start of intense Israeli bombardment in Lebanon and retaliatory strikes by Hezbollah.