Israel has killed a senior Hezbollah commander in one of the most significant assassinations since the war began.

Wissam Hassan al-Tawil, of the Iran-backed group’s elite Radwan Forces, was Hezbollah’s first senior military leader to be eliminated in three months of cross-border clashes with Israeli forces, adding to fears of a wider conflict in the region.

He was reportedly killed alongside another Hezbollah fighter when their car was hit by a strike on the Lebanese village of Majdal Selm, some 3.7 miles from the Israel border.

“This is a very painful strike,” an unnamed security official told Reuters. “Things will flare up now.”

Footage posted on Telegram by an Iranian news agency with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed to show the burnt-out car in which he was killed.

Tawil, known by his nickname Al-Hajj Jawad, was said to have played a leading role in managing Hezbollah’s operations in the south.

In a statement, the group said he had “risen as a martyr on the path to Jerusalem”.

Hezbollah has used the same description for the 130-plus members of its ranks that have been killed since it began exchanging fire with Israeli troops in October, after the war broke out, in a show of support for Hamas.

Born in 1970 in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, Tawil joined Hezbollah at an early age and rose through the ranks to a senior role in the Radwan units, which Israel says aims to infiltrate its northern border.

Hezbollah-affiliated media published pictures of him with leader Hassan Nasrallah, and with former IRGC commander Qassim Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq four years ago.

The images point to Tawil’s seniority in the network of Iranian-supported militant groups.

Lebanese Hezbollah commanders have played a major role in training and advising other Iran-backed fighters in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

The Hezbollah-Israel conflict has intensified in recent days after Hezbollah vowed to avenge the assassination of Hamas’s deputy political leader, Saleh al-Arouri, in a Beirut drone strike widely attributed to Israeli forces.

The group claimed an attack on an Israeli observation post the following day, on January 3.

The strike on Tawil raised fears of another full-fronted conflict between Hezbollah-Israel, which last went to war in 2006.

US officials are attempting to de-escalate tensions to avoid such a scenario, which would likely lead to major losses on both sides.

Israel wants further assurances that Hezbollah will move further from its border. It fears that the group could commit in the country’s north a wider-scale version of Hamas’s Oct 7 rampage across the south.

Israeli officials have said there is a narrow window for a diplomatic solution and are demanding that Hezbollah comply with a long-standing UN resolution that requires its fighters to pull back 18 miles from the border.

“We do not want to fight a war on two fronts - if Hezbollah drags us into another war we will hold the Lebanese state responsible,” Eylon Levy, an Israeli government spokesman, said in a press briefing. “Either Hezbollah backs off as part of a diplomatic solution, or we push them back.”

The Lebanese are also afraid of another wider-scale war that would devastate a country already rocked by economic collapse.

“I cannot emphasise how terrified the Lebanese are right now,” Chris Doyle, director of the London-based Council for Arab-British Understanding, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“The implications of an Israel-Hezbollah war right now will be huge - on security, global economy, on the situation in Gaza.”

The spike in tension on the Lebanon-Israel border came as Israeli media reported that the IDF knows the exact location of Hamas military leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the Oct 7 terror attacks.

Sinwar has surrounded himself with a large number of living Israeli hostages, which is preventing the IDF from carrying out a strike on him, Israel’s Hayom newspaper reported.

Mr Levy said that he was unable to comment on the report.

“Hamas terrorists have two options: surrender or die in battle,” he added.