Hezbollah announced on Monday, January 8, the killing of a "commander" for the first time, naming him as Wissam al-Tawil. A security source in Lebanon, requesting anonymity for security reasons, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Tawil "had a leading role in managing Hezbollah's operations in the south", and was killed there by an Israeli strike targeting his car. The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah "military sites" in Lebanon on Monday, but did not immediately comment on Tawil's death.
It is the second high-profile killing in Lebanon since last week, when a strike attributed to Israel in a Beirut stronghold of Hezbollah killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh Arouri.
Hezbollah released photographs of Tawil alongside leaders of the movement as well as top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who headed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's foreign operations until he was killed in a US strike in 2020. Other photos showed him beside Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and the group's former top commander Imad Mughniyeh, killed in a 2008 car bombing in Syria blamed on Israel. Tawil also appeared alongside Hezbollah's former military commander in Syria, Mustafa Badreddine, who died in 2016 and had been indicted by an international court for the killing of Lebanon's former premier Rafic Hariri.
The killing of Hamas's deputy leader in Beirut last week, in a missile strike widely attributed to Israel, has raised fears of a wider conflagration. Saleh Arouri was the most high-profile Hamas figure to die during the three-month war, in the first attack on Beirut since the fighting began. On Friday, Nasrallah warned Israel his fighters would respond swiftly to Arouri's killing. The group claimed an attack on an Israeli air control base the next day.
On his fourth regional trip since the war began, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia after talks earlier Monday in Abu Dhabi. Blinken "emphasized the importance of preventing further spread of the conflict", during talks with United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a US summary of the meeting said.
He will later meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the desert city of Al-Ula, a US official said on condition of anonymity. Early in the war, Riyadh said it had suspended talks with Israel on normalizing ties. Blinken's visit comes alongside that of other top Western diplomats trying to stop the conflict from spreading and to boost desperately needed aid to Gazans.