Israel Killed Hezbollah Air Defense Commander, The Strike Exposed Serious Security Issues (Videos)

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Israel on October 6 assassinated a senior commander of Hezbollah air defense array in a strike that exposed some of the serious security issues that the group continues to face.

The commander, Hassan Atwi, was killed alongside his wife, Zainab Raslan, in a drone strike targeting their car in Zebdine, on the outskirts of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, the heartland of Hezbollah.

In a statement, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said that Atwi was a “significant source of knowledge” in Hezbollah, and led efforts to rebuild infrastructure and procure equipment for the air defense array. The military added that he also maintained contacts with Iranian officials who supplied Hezbollah with air defense systems.

Atwi’s activities “constituted a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” and his killing was a blow to Hezbollah’s efforts to re-establish itself, according to the IDF.

Lebanese media reported that Atwi was in fact blind due to the Israeli exploding pager attack that targeted Hezbollah members last year. He and his wife had two sons who were also killed during the conflict with Israel. The assassination was likely an act of revenge, as the man was clearly disabled.

Last November, the United States brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon to put an end to the conflict initiated by Hezbollah a year earlier to support Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The IDF, however, continues to launch strikes against the group.

In fact, the assassination of Atwi was not the only Israeli attack to target Lebanon on October 6. The IDF announced also that it carried out strikes on the eastern Beqaa Valley, saying that it targeted several Hezbollah military camps where operatives were gathered.

The Hezbollah sites were used by the group’s elite Radwan Force for training and planning attacks against Israel and IDF troops, the military said.

“The storage of weapons and carrying out military training against the State of Israel by Hezbollah terrorists constitutes a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon and a threat to the State of Israel,” the IDF added.

While the strike that killed Atwi was not unique, it did reveal some of the security issues that Hezbollah continues to face.

Right after the strike, footage from a CCTV security camera showing the moment the commander’s car was hit was posted to social networks.

Since the start of the conflict with Israel nearly two years ago, Hezbollah has called on people in southern Lebanon to disconnect such cameras as the Israeli intelligence may have access to them. Despite everything that went down since then, the people, which are mainly supporters of Hezbollah, have clearly not adhered to the instructions.

The IDF may have used the exact same camera to coordinate the assassination as the strike was carried out right after Atwi’s wife is seen in the footage getting back into the car. And even if that was not true, the footage posted online has for sure helped the military assess the result of the drone strike.

Of course this was not the first case where the assassination of Hezbollah commanders was seen in CCTV footage posted online later.

While Hezbollah has reportedly begun taking measures to improve its operational security since the pager attack and the following assassinations of its top leaders, including its former Secretary-General Hasan Nasrallah, last year, the supporters of the group are clearly not cooperating as they should.

This is a major problem for the group, as it is clearly still exposed to Israeli intelligence, mainly through technological means. Of course, such problems, if not solved quickly, could encourage the IDF to resume war against the group in the near future.

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