Israel Says Commandos Capture Hezbollah Operative in Rare Raid by Sea

The Israeli military said Saturday commandos had slipped deep into Lebanese territory in a nighttime sea raid and captured a senior Hezbollah operative, in the first known abduction of its kind in more than a year of fighting.

Israel’s version of the Navy SEALs, called Shayetet 13, conducted the operation and brought the Lebanese national to Israel for interrogation, the military said. Lebanese security officials said the operation was swift, lasting about four minutes and involving some 20 commandos in the Mediterranean coastal city of Batroun, about 30 miles north of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

Lebanese security officials said they believed the man abducted was Imad Amhaz, a 38-year-old civilian ship captain whose wife reported him missing within the past two days. It wasn’t immediately disclosed on which day the raid happened.

A security camera captured part of the incident in a video that Lebanese officials said was authentic. Several armed soldiers were seen escorting a man in their custody in the video.

The man was transferred to Israeli military intelligence’s Unit 504, which is responsible for interrogations and human-sourced intelligence, the Israeli military said. The military said that it was interrogating the man as an expert in his field for Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

“Israel doesn’t send elite forces into Lebanon on such a mission for anything less than a valuable asset,” said Daniel Sobelman, a professor of international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Lebanese security forces investigating the incident found about 10 cellphone SIM cards registered to foreign numbers and a foreign passport in Amhaz’s apartment, from which they said he was presumed to be taken.

Lebanese officials said Amhaz wasn’t connected to the country’s security services. They said he rented the apartment in Batroun about a month ago to study at the local maritime institute.

Israel only disclosed the raid after security-camera footage leaked online. The operation marked a departure from Israel’s military campaign so far in Lebanon, which includes a ground offensive aimed at destroying Hezbollah’s infrastructure near the country’s border, and an air campaign against the militant group’s infrastructure and key figures.

The campaign has so far eliminated the group’s top layer of leadership, including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah and his immediate replacement, Hashem Safieddine.

The Israeli military wouldn’t confirm domestic media reports that the captured man was part of Hezbollah’s naval operation. Its agents are key to both the group’s rearmament and its pressure against Israel’s navy and seaborne assets such as its offshore natural gas fields. Lebanon’s Mediterranean coastline has long been one of the main smuggling routes for Hezbollah to bring weapons into Lebanon, along with its land border with Syria and its airport.

Israel’s military conducted several strikes in Beirut in September to destroy many of Hezbollah’s shore-to-sea missiles.

Hezbollah opened its war with Israel by firing rockets into the country on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after the Hamas-led attacks into southern Israel that sparked the continuing war in Gaza. Fighting remained at a tit-for-tat level for several months before gradually ratcheting up and exploding into a full-on conflict in mid-September, when Israel exploded thousands of Hezbollah’s communications devices and started a devastating aerial campaign against the militant group.

Israel’s offensive killed about 2,500 people across Lebanon, according to the country’s Health Ministry, whose figures don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Dozens of Israeli soldiers have been killed since ground operations began in Lebanon in late September. Hezbollah continues to fire rockets, missiles and drones on northern Israel, most recently killing four Thai agricultural workers and three Israelis in separate incidents on Thursday. Eleven people were injured in central Israel on Saturday when a Hezbollah rocket slammed into a home, according to local emergency services.

White House envoy Amos Hochstein was in Israel on Thursday to make progress toward a cease-fire, which remains elusive. Israeli officials have pledged to continue fighting until they have uprooted militant infrastructure in the close vicinity of their shared border, and estimate that troops currently on the ground will require several more weeks to complete operations. Israeli officials have also said they would require beefed up security guarantees against Hezbollah’s re-entrenchment, which the group has rejected.

Source » msn.com