{"id":779572,"date":"2026-05-07T11:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T11:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/779572\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T11:57:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T11:57:16","slug":"idf-kills-hezbollah-radwan-commander-in-beirut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/779572\/","title":{"rendered":"IDF kills Hezbollah Radwan commander in Beirut"},"content":{"rendered":"

The IDF confirmed on Thursday the killing of Hezbollah’s Radwan special forces<\/a> commander in Beirut, Ahmad Ghaleb Balout, saying in a\u00a0statement that he was killed in a precision strike in Beirut\u2019s Dahiyeh neighborhood on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The IDF said Balout directed dozens of attacks against Israeli troops in southern Lebanon during the war, including anti-tank missile fire and explosive-device attacks.<\/p>\n

The military noted that Balout was also working to rebuild the Radwan Force\u2019s capabilities, including Hezbollah<\/a>\u2019s long-planned \u201cConquer the Galilee\u201d invasion plan. The IDF said it would continue to act against the Radwan Force’s efforts to restore its strength.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the successful strike “in the heart of Beirut” on Thursday afternoon. \u201cThis is the same senior terrorist who led the plan to conquer the North,\u201d Netanyahu said. \u201cHe thought he could continue to direct attacks against our forces and our communities from his secret terrorist headquarters in Beirut.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo terrorist has immunity,\u201d Netanyahu said. \u201cAnyone who threatens the State of Israel will pay the price.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SMOKESMOKE RISES from southern Lebanon, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, in northern Israel, May 6, 2026. (credit: REUTERS\/Ammar Awad TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)Strike on Balout was ordered Thursday night<\/strong><\/p>\n

Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz<\/a> on Thursday night said they had ordered the IDF to try to assassinate Balout.<\/p>\n

This attack was the first in Lebanon’s capital in weeks, following the ceasefires with Iran on April 7 and with Hezbollah<\/a> on April 17.<\/p>\n

Lebanese media first reported on the attack.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu<\/a> and Katz said that Radwan is responsible for the attacks on Israeli northern residents.<\/p>\n

They added that no terrorist has immunity and that the “long arm of Israel would get to every enemy and murderer.”<\/p>\n

Further, they said they would keep the government’s promise to restore security for Israel’s northern residents.<\/p>\n

A senior official told The Jerusalem Post that the IDF had attacked a Hezbollah headquarters that issued instructions for ceasefire violations and ordered attacks on northern Israeli communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Previous attacks on Radwan commanders<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since 2023, Israel has killed multiple top Radwan commanders, but fewer top officials recently.<\/p>\n

In November 2025, in the most aggressive strike by Israel against Hezbollah since the November 2024 ceasefire, an IDF airstrike killed Hezbollah military commander Ali Tabatabai in the heart of Beirut.<\/p>\n

Multiple senior Hezbollah commanders have been killed since, but not at the level of the top Radwan commander.<\/p>\n

For almost a week after the April 17 ceasefire, the IDF and Hezbollah overwhelmingly limited friction between the sides.<\/p>\n

‘The ceasefire that is not a ceasefire’<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, as Iran and the US started to fight more in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, the Lebanese government started to hold public meetings with Israel, and the IDF continued to hunt down Hezbollah fighters in parts of southern Lebanon under its control, Hezbollah started to attack northern Israeli towns again, and escalated its attacks on IDF soldiers.<\/p>\n

If the IDF had hoped, as a senior IDF source put it on Tuesday, that the ceasefire would only apply north of the Litani River and within Israel, but not in southern Lebanon in between the two, Hezbollah was not having it.<\/p>\n

Further, if the IDF believed that Hezbollah was so desperate to avoid attacks in Beirut that it would turn the other cheek from other attacks, and also would not be able to seriously threaten IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese terror group’s use of FPV drones has shown that it can unfortunately charge a heavy price.<\/p>\n

So with the IDF driving Hezbollah out of or killing its small groups of remaining fighters in Naqoura, Ras al-Bayada, and other parts of southern Lebanon, what does “the ceasefire, which is not a ceasefire,” as one IDF official put it on Tuesday, look like?<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the Post embedded with the IDF for a visit to both Naqoura and an IDF position in the Ras al-Bayada region, reaching around 10 kilometers deep into southern Lebanon, all on the coast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most of what the Post saw showed heavily destroyed villages along the way- a feature of Hezbollah keeping weapons in most houses in the majority of these villages, said IDF senior sources.<\/p>\n

Despite that picture, IDF officials said that Christian villages, like Alma a-Shaab, have been left intact, since Hezbollah did not set up positions or store weapons there.<\/p>\n

That means that Christian Lebanese civilians should be able to return to their homes standing when the current conflict is resolved.<\/p>\n

The area is under the control of IDF Division 146, commanded by Brig. Gen. Beni Aharon, with two of his senior commanders being Col. Aviel Balachsan, commander of the 226 Paratroopers Reservist Brigade, and Lt. Col. Lior Chasid, commander of Battalion 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The IDF confirmed on Thursday the killing of Hezbollah’s Radwan special forces commander in Beirut, Ahmad Ghaleb Balout,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":779573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51259,372,4783,66836,4784,99,41044,13192,50,64472],"class_list":{"0":"post-779572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-beirut","9":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","10":"tag-hezbollah","11":"tag-hezbollah-lebanon","12":"tag-idf","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-israel-katz","15":"tag-lebanon","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-radwan-forces"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116533175808244685","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}