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The Israelis continue to hit Hezbollah leaders hard. There was Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the terror group for thirty-two years, who was blown up in an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, southern Beirut, on September 27. There was Nasrallah’s heir apparent, Hashem Safieddine, who was similarly disposed of in an airstrike by the IDF in the same Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh in southern Beirut, at the beginning of October. And while he hasn’t been removed as yet, after learning that the new leader of Hezbollah would be Naim Qassem, Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant wrote on X: “Temporary appointment. Not for long.”

Ten of the twelve members of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council have been killed by the IDF. Several dozen of its top commanders have been eliminated in southern Lebanon. And just now, the deputy commander of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force — its elite unit — has been killed by the IDF in what it calls a “precision strike.” More on the death of Mustafa Ahmad Shahadi can be found here: “IDF eliminates Mustafa Ahmad Shahadi, Radwan Force deputy commander,” by Ben Edidin, Jerusalem Post, October 30, 2024:

The IDF eliminated Mustafa Ahmad Shahadi, the Deputy Commander of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force in the area of Nabatieh, in a targeted airstrike on Wednesday, the military reported.

The Radwan Force is the Lebanese terror group’s elite unit.

The Israel Air Force used precise intelligence to locate and eliminate the commander, the military added. Shahadi was reportedly responsible for multiple terrorist attacks against Israel.

Responsible for the unit’s terror activities in southern Lebanon

The military noted that he was also accountable for the Radwan Forces’ combat operations during the Syrian Civil War from 2012 – 2017 and has organized multiple terrorist attacks in southern Lebanon.

When Israel entered southern Lebanon on October 1 to push Hezbollah forces back north of the Litani river, it had two goals. One was to make sure that Hezbollah would be pushed sufficiently back from the border so that it would no longer be able to launch missile attacks from southern Lebanon into Israel, and 60,000 displaced Israelis could at long last return to their homes in the north. The second was to prevent Hezbollah from being able to carry out its plan to stage an even larger attack on Israeli civilians than that carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023, using its terror tunnels to infiltrate into Israel.

Now the IDF has pushed its way into southern Lebanon and has been destroying dozens of tunnels, including an underground command-and-control center. The IDF has sent its troops into the village of Khiam, some six kilometers (nearly four miles) from the border with Israel.

Now that both the Radwan Force’s commander, Ibrahim Akil, and deputy commander, Mustafa Ahmad Shahadi, have been killed by the IDF, as well as commanders who served under them, the elite unit on which Hezbollah placed such murderous hopes is rudderless. Above ground, the IDF is pounding the Hezbollah stronghold of Khiam, and below ground, locating and systematically blowing up the network of terror tunnels that snake from Lebanon into Israel. No wonder that Naim Qassem, in his first official statement as the new leader of Hezbollah, has said that his group is “open to a ceasefire” with Israel. His forces are being battered every which way. Israel, of course, has no intention of agreeing to a ceasefire until it has done to Hezbollah what it is finishing up doing to Hamas in Gaza. It has already destroyed four-fifths of Hezbollah’s store of rockets; the group had 50,000 before the war, and now, the IDF believes, it has no more than 10,000 still intact, with more being destroyed every day. Netanyahu’s government will only contemplate a ceasefire once Hezbollah has pulled back entirely to north of the Litani River, and agreed to cease all rocket, missile, and drone attacks on northern Israel. Shahadi’s death is another sign of the IDF’s battlefield mastery, and Hezbollah’s inability to protect its most senior commanders.