ISRAEL – Israel has launched multiple strikes on southern Lebanon over the last day, including one which killed a senior Hezbollah commander. Mohammed Qassem Al-Shaer, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, was killed in a strike on the village of Qaraoun in the western Beqaa district on Tuesday, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The IDF said Al-Shaer had “advanced numerous terrorist activities against the state of Israel” and his “elimination” would impair the Iran-backed militant group’s ability to launch attacks against Israel from southern Lebanon. Hezbollah confirmed Al-Shaer had been killed and said it responded to his killing by launching “dozens” of Katyusha rockets and several drones toward two locations in northern Israel.

No casualties were reported, according to the IDF, which said some of the “projectiles” were intercepted and others fell in an open area. The IDF said it responded by striking Hezbollah launchers “in the areas of Mansouri and At Tiri,” which had been used in the attacks. On Wednesday, the IDF said it struck overnight 30 Hezbollah launchers and “terrorist infrastructure sites” in areas of southern Lebanon which “posed a threat to Israeli civilians.”

Lebanese state media NNA reported multiple Israeli strikes overnight on several areas, some of which caused “extensive damage” to property, crops, and buildings in the town of Al-Qlaileh. In a statement Wednesday, Hezbollah said that another fighter was killed, but did not say where or the cause of death. It also did not mention the strikes.

The Israeli military also said Tuesday its air force had struck a Hezbollah military structure in the village of Rachaf in the Nabatieh governorate of southern Lebanon. Lebanon’s emergency service said 12 people were wounded in the strike 12 on Rachaf. The latest strikes come weeks after Israel said it had killed Hezbollah’s most senior military official, Fu’ad Shukr, in a drone strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a populous neighborhood that is also the Iran-backed group’s stronghold. (CNN)…[+]