Eliminated 250 Hezbollah terrorists in last four days: Israel

Tel Aviv: The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said on Friday that it has eliminated 2000-plus military targets and 250 Hezbollah terrorists since it began targetted and demarcated ground operations in southern Lebanon, four days ago.

"Directing fire and intelligence of the divisions and the Northern Command, five commanders at the level of the brigade, 10 company commanders and six platoon commanders were eliminated," stated IDF.

At the same time, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) is also conducting preemptive strikes during these intelligence-based operations in southern Lebanon.

"The forces of Division 98 were the first to begin a ground operation at the beginning of the week, and later 36 also entered. The forces operate in the formation of brigade attacks that combine air activity alongside tanks and artillery," mentioned IDF.

During the operation, the IDF eliminated Hezbollah terrorists entrenched in buildings and also destroyed their weapons cache, including ready-to-launch launchers.

The IDF troops also discovered dozens of weapons "aimed at Israeli territory" that were left behind in buildings and civilian homes, including anti-tank missiles, firearms, observation posts and a buried explosive device.

"The Air Force forces operate above and around the forces at all hours of the day - from preliminary attacks on military targets in the raid targets to removing threats in space through collection and attack missions. So far, about 250 terrorists have been eliminated from the ground and the air, over 2,000 military targets have been attacked, including terrorists, terrorist infrastructures, military buildings, munitions warehouses, launchers and more," the IDF detailed.

Earlier in the day, the IDF confirmed that it had eliminated Mohammad Rashid Sakafi, the Commander of Hezbollah's Communications Unit, during a "precise, intelligence-based strike" in Beirut on Thursday.

"Sakafi was a senior Hezbollah terrorist, who was responsible for the communications unit since 2000. Sakafi invested significant efforts to develop communication capabilities between all of Hezbollah's units," the Israeli force claimed.