Passers-by and an ambulance of the Islamic Health Committee (from Hezbollah) at the scene of a drone strike near Bazourieh, in southern Lebanon, March 29, 2024. (Credit: Screen capture of a video obtained by our correspondent in the South)
SOUR — At 8:30 in the morning on Friday, an Israeli drone attacked a car driving along the road connecting the southern Lebanese villages of Bazourieh and Wadi Jilo, a few kilometers east of Lebanon's southern-most major coastal city, Sour.
Ambulances were dispatched to the site of the strike, while Israeli drones continued to hover over the scene, flying low. Paramedics pulled a body from the wreckage, identified later as Hezbollah member Ali Abed al-Hassan Naim, born in 1974 and originally from Selaa, in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah announced his death, saying he "fell as a martyr on the road to Jerusalem," without specifying where or how he was killed. The phrase is used by the party in reference to those who are killed fighting Israel.
However, a security source told L'Orient Today's correspondent in the South that the Hezbollah announcement did indeed pertain to the victim of the car strike outside of Sour.
Hezbollah has not officially commented on Naim's position, but other sources have placed some significance on his role in the party. AFP cited a Lebanese military source as saying that Naim was an "important official" in Hezbollah. On the Israeli side, the army's Arabic-speaking spokesperson Avichay Adraee called Naim "the deputy commander of Hezbollah's missile and rocket unit."
According to Adraee, Naim had "great expertise" in missiles, had launched "large-caliber missile operations" and was planning "further attacks" against Israel.
This is the second time that Israel has launched a targeted strike in the vicinity of Bazourieh, the hometown of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. On Jan. 20, an Israeli drone fired on two cars, killing a Hezbollah executive, Ali Hodroj, IT and telecommunications expert, Mohammad Bakr Diab, and two other people.