Israeli airstrike kills commander of Hezbollah's communication division

Israel on Friday announced that it has killed the commander of Hezbollah’s communications division in Lebanon. The leader was killed in a previous airstrike that was launched on Thursday.

The Israel Defense Forces said that Muhammad Rashid Sakafi has led Hezbollah’s communications since 2000 and was regarded as closely connected to the group’s leadership.

“Sakafi invested significant efforts to develop communication capabilities between all of Hezbollah’s units in all periods of operation, to maintain the flow of information throughout the terrorist organization,” the Israeli military added.

The announcement about Sakafi’s death comes a day after Israel said that it had struck Hezbollah’s media and intelligence headquarters in Beirut.

“Israeli fighter jets struck targets belonging to Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut, including terror operatives belonging to the unit, intelligence-gathering means, command centres and additional terrorist infrastructure,” AFP quoted the military as saying in a statement.

The country also said that its fighter jets had struck Hezbollah targets near a key Lebanese-Syrian border crossing overnight.

“Infrastructure sites adjacent to the Masnaa border crossing between Syria and Lebanon were struck last night,” the military said in a statement.

Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas and Hezbollah and the biggest blow to the latter came after the country killed its leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in a rare sermon on Friday defended this week’s missile attack on Israel that deepened fears of a regional war and praised allies’ defiance.

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Speaking in front of tens of thousands at a mosque in the capital Tehran, Khamenei said armed groups in the Middle East “will not back down” even after a spate of Israeli killings of militant leaders.

In his first public Friday sermon in nearly five years, Khamenei spoke in Arabic to discuss fighting against Israel by the Iran-aligned “axis of resistance”, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestinian group Hamas.

With inputs from AFP