Hezbollah Retaliates Against Israel After Senior Commander killed

Hezbollah confirmed the death of the commander and said in a statement that he was Taleb Abdallah, also known as Abu Taleb.

Abu Taleb was the most senior member of the group killed in eight months of fire between Israel and Hezbollah, a security source told Reuters. He was identified by the sources as the group's commander for the central region of the southern border strip.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The security sources said the four Hezbollah members were likely targeted during a meeting.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the commander was senior to Wissam Tawil, a high-level Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli strike in January.

Some 300 Hezbollah fighters, including commanders and operatives with key responsibilities, have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since October, when the Gaza war broke out.

The Israeli military says it has killed more than 320 Hezbollah members, including at least 100 targeted after field operatives gathered "precise high-quality intelligence" on them.

According to a Tuesday report from the Russian state outlet RIA, the agreement has temporarily halted due to challenges faced by Iranian counterparts.

Zamir Kabulov, a Russian foreign ministry official, was cited as stating, "This is a strategic decision made by the leadership of both countries. The process has halted due to issues faced by our Iranian partners."

The Russian official nevertheless expressed confidence that “this task will be completed before finalizing the agreement's text,” after which “the two countries' leaders will determine the signing's time and location.”

Later, Iran's ambassador to Russia denied the report. When asked about the news at a press conference on Tuesday, Kazem Jalali accused the Iranian media of "mistranslating" Russian media reports that Iran had suspended the process. He refrained from delving into specifics.

Later on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that despite potential shifts in the event schedule, Moscow and Tehran are actively pursuing the comprehensive bilateral cooperation agreement. Peskov also reiterated Russia's commitment to enhancing ties with Iran.

Adding to the multitude of narratives, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that, while a comprehensive agreement between Russia and Iran cannot yet be signed, its text has been fully coordinated.

Russia's TASS news agency quoted Lavrov as saying that several "procedural legislative actions" must be completed before the agreement can be signed.

Iran's previous administration commenced talks for a new long-term agreement during President Hassan Rouhani's tenure, but the current government officially presented a draft to Russia.

“Documents of strategic cooperation can outline the horizons of the [two countries’] relations over 20 years,” late President Ebrahim Raisi said after he met with Vladimir Putin and presented the draft in 2022.

According to Reza Talebi, Iran International's political correspondent, the long-running process might be a strategic move by Vladimir Putin to exert more pressure on an isolated Iran, gaining leverage in the agreement and discouraging Iran from negotiating with the West.

"It's a message from Vladimir Putin to Tehran, warning them not to alter their policies, particularly concerning Ukraine and the Gaza conflict. Additionally, it aims to pressure the incoming Iranian government into negotiations to secure more favorable terms," he stated.

Following the death of Ebrahim Raisi and his entourage last month, a snap election will be held on June 28 in Iran.

Tehran and Moscow initially signed a long-term agreement in March 2001. Officially known as the Treaty of the Foundation of Mutual Relations and the Principles of Cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation Act, it was initially set for ten years but was extended twice for five-year terms.

According to Iran’s ambassador to Russia, the countries agreed to extend the agreement for another five years in 2021, setting its expiration date in 2026.

In 2023, reports of possible difficulties in developing the new agreement with Russia, resulting from protests from Iran in response to the joint statement issued following the Russia-GCC Strategic Dialogue, were made.

In particular, the disagreement concerns one point in the joint statement, which Iranian officials believe reflects Moscow's solidarity with the UAE's position on the territorial dispute regarding three islands in the Persian Gulf that Tehran considers to be its territory. Moscow's explanations were unsatisfactory to the Iranian side.

During the tenure of hardliner Raisi, efforts to strengthen relations with Russia intensified, and many contracts were signed to enhance bilateral cooperation across various industries. However little was accomplished, as Russia mired in the Ukraine war has limited financial resources to invest in Iran.

In contrast, militarily ties have soared, including joint drills and drone production. Iran has provided Russia with hundreds of kamikaze unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that have been extensively deployed to target civil infrastructure and cities in Ukraine since mid-2022.

Also, US intelligence revealed last year that Tehran and Moscow were building a drone manufacturing facility in Russia for use in Ukraine.

Under severe international sanctions, Moscow and Tehran have forged a closer economic alliance, especially following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This conflict rendered Russia the world's most sanctioned state, a position previously held by Iran.

Currently, trade between Tehran and Moscow stands at $4 billion, which even Iranian officials admit is far below the target of $40 billion.

Since the onset of the Ukraine war, Russia and Iran have focused their economic ties on advancing cooperation to circumvent sanctions. The two countries reached an agreement in December to eliminate the use of the US dollar in bilateral trade, a development heralded by Iran's central bank governor as a "new chapter." However, the move has more of a symbolic significance than a real economic act.

Amid sanctions, Iran seeks long-term agreements with countries such as China and Russia under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's "Looking East" policy, the cornerstone of a “revolutionary economy” hardliners have been promoting.

In 2021, Iran and China signed a controversial 25-year agreement. Khamenei, first proposed the deal during President Xi's visit to Tehran in 2016.

The details of the pact have never been disclosed, prompting controversy in Iran. There is only a general agreement outlined in a leaked text copy.

According to a former Iranian ambassador to China, the Tehran-Beijing 25-year agreement has been overvalued and has only served as a tool for China to achieve deals with Saudi Arabia.

Despite Iran's attempts at securing bilateral relations with China and Russia, relations remain on edge as both countries support the territorial claim by Arab Persian Gulf countries against Iran.

Hezbollah launched anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli fighter jets over southern Lebanon on Sunday, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), as cross-border skirmishes between Israel and the Iran-backed terror organization intensify.

Incoming rocket alerts were also activated in the northern coastal region of Acre overnight Monday, the IDF said in a statement.

The drones and anti-tank missiles launched caused fires and damaged buildings in northern Israel. This came just a week after Hezbollah rockets sparked days of wildfires in northern Israel, with a forest reserve destroyed and at least 11 people hospitalized for smoke inhalation.

Since October 7, clashes between Israel and Lebanon have escalated, with 150,000 people on both sides of the boundary forced to flee their homes. Recent attacks have increased the fears of full-scale war.

For Northerners in Israel, everyday life is a battle, Israeli resident Ofri Eliyahu Rimoni told Iran International. "Life is a living hell' for people of the North," she told Iran International.

"Alarms four or five times a day, telling us to go to shelters to stay there. A lot of people was displaced from their homes and the people who didn't get displaced from their homes, they are right now living in a war zone. Literally a war zone," she said.

She said agriculture is the main industry in the region and the wildfires set off by Hezbollah attacks are devastating the local economy as people risk their lives just to work in the fields.

"Your whole life burning down. It's burning my heart," said Rimoni.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened further military action after the onslaught of Hezbollah attacks in the North.

While touring the damage from the fires in the northern city of Kiryat Shmona last week, Netanyahu said that Israel was preparing for “very intense action in the north.”

“One way or another, we will restore security to the north,” Netanyahu said.

60,000 people, who previously called the North their home, are living in hotel rooms scattered across Israel.

On June 5, at least 11 people from a Druze Arab village of Hurfeish in northern Israel were injured after Hezbollah launched an armed drone attack. One person was reportedly in critical condition after the exploding drones crashed into a soccer field. 39-year-old First Sergeant (res.) Refael Kauders was killed.

On Telegram, Hezbollah took credit for the attack, claiming the attack was in response to an Israeli strike on June 4 that killed a Hezbollah operative in the southern Lebanese town of Naqoura.

Mufid Mari, a former Knesset member and retired IDF Colonel is from the Druze village of Hurfeish that was hit. He said life is not normal, with tourism at a standstill in the north and the Hezbollah attacks impacting factories and day-to-day life.

Mari said Druze villages are especially vulnerable to Hezbollah attacks because 40 percent of their homes are old and are not equipped with safe houses to protect them against rockets. When the sirens sound, the goal is to move as quickly as possible, in a matter of seconds, to the safe room.

"All of us in the Middle East, we want and need to be living in peace," said Mari.

Mari said the daily attacks are intolerable and he believes they need to get ready for a large-scale war with the Iran-backed proxy.

Israeli security expert Sarit Zehavi said Northerners in Israel are expecting a Hamas-style attack in the region. Zehavi said more than a decade ago, Hezbollah published its offensive plan for an attack on Israel - and she described its similarity to what Hamas did to southern Israel as “astonishing.”

The anticipated attack hasn't happened yet, she believes, because tens of thousands of residents have already evacuated. She said most of the attacks are in evacuated areas, but in the recent weeks there were more attacks on areas which are further from the border with Lebanon.

"These are exactly the areas that the UAVs and the anti-tank in the rockets aim to and this is every day," said Zehavi.

Zehavi, who served 15 years as an intelligence officer in the IDF said "the evacuated towns have no prospect when they will be able to come home. They just don't know how this is going to play out. And it's so sad to see the beautiful valley empty like this."

Zehavi said all roads lead to Iran.

The founder of the Alma Research Center which monitors and disseminates information on the threats faced in the North, referred to Iran as the 'engineer' and the 'architect' behind everything happening.

"This is all part of the same campaign under the title 'unification of fronts.' The idea of unification of fronts is to create a multi-front campaign against the State of Israel by these proxies."

It is widely believed that Iran supports Hamas with $1 billion a year. The Islamic Republic also supports Palestinian Islamic Jihad with tens of millions and is providing Hezbollah with 70 per cent of its budget - and its ideology.

Hezbollah opened a battle front with Israel on Oct. 8, a day after the deadly Hamas attacks in Israel.

While the US and France have been trying to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict, Northerners in Israel say they just want to have their lives back.

Israel has intensified covert strikes in Syria against weapons sites, supply routes and Iranian-linked commanders, seven regional officials and diplomats said, ahead of a threatened full-scale assault on Tehran's key ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

A June 2 air raid that killed 18 people, including an adviser with Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, targeted a clandestine, fortified weapons site near Aleppo, three of the sources said. In May, an air strike hit a convoy of trucks headed to Lebanon carrying missile parts and another raid killed Hezbollah operatives, four said.

Israel has for years struck militant groups backed by arch-foe Iran in Syria and elsewhere, in a low-level campaign that burst into open confrontation after Israel and Palestinian group Hamas - another Iranian ally - went to war in Gaza on Oct. 7.

Israel has since killed dozens of Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and Hezbollah officers in Syria, from just two last year before the Oct. 7 attack, according to a tally by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank.

The battle hit fever pitch in April when Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing the top IRGC commander for operations in the Levant. In retaliation, Iran fired some 300 missiles and drones at Israel, almost all of which were shot down. Israel then attacked Iranian territory with drones.

This direct confrontation, a first for the two countries, stopped there. Israel also briefly reduced the number of strikes it was carrying out against Iranian proxies, said Selin Uysal, a French diplomat seconded to the Washington Institute, citing the tally, which counted publicly-known attacks in the weeks immediately before and after.

"There was a slowdown" after the face-off in April, she said.

"But they are picking up again because of suspected Iranian weapons transfers to Lebanon. There is a kinetic effort in Syria and Lebanon to disrupt the supply chain between Iran and Hezbollah."

Reuters interviewed three Syrian officials, an Israeli government official and three Western diplomats about Israel's Syria campaign. The officials asked not to be named to talk freely about sensitive matters.

The Syrian officials gave previously unreported details of the targets of Israeli strikes around the cities of Aleppo and Homs in recent months, including the June 2 attack.

All those interviewed said Israel's moves suggested it was gearing up for a full-scale war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, which borders Syria, that could begin when Israel dials down its campaign in Gaza.

"The statements of our leaders have been clear that escalation could be imminent in Lebanon," the Israeli government official said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that his country was prepared for "very strong action" at its frontier with Lebanon, where it has been fighting a so-far limited battle with Hezbollah since October 8.

War in Lebanon is not inevitable. Israel has also indicated openness to diplomatic efforts being brokered by Washington and France. The Israeli government official said the campaign in Syria was also aimed at weakening Hezbollah and thus discouraging it from a war with Israel.

The Israeli government and military did not respond to questions for this article. Israel rarely publicly acknowledges targeted killings overseas and has not commented on the recent strikes in Syria. A senior Israeli official said last year Israel was determined to prevent Syria becoming part of a new front.

The IRGC and a Syrian government spokesperson did not respond. Hezbollah declined to comment.

KILLING COMMANDERS, STRIKING SUPPLIES

Syria, a longtime Iranian ally, became the key conduit for Tehran's arms supplies to Hezbollah after Iran deployed military personnel and thousands of allied paramilitaries from around 2013 to help President Bashar al-Assad during his country's ongoing civil war.

Some weapons parts are smuggled into Syria while others are assembled there, the three Syrian officials said.

Israel's Syria campaign aims to make sure Hezbollah, Iran's most loyal ally and the linchpin of Tehran's projection of regional power through militant proxies, is as weak as possible before any kind of fight begins, the Syrian officials and Israeli official said.

The June 2 killing of Saeed Abyar, described by Iranian state media as an IRGC adviser, showed Israel's reach in taking out key personnel and targeting equipment even when Iran has tried new methods of protecting weapons and parts bound for Hezbollah, the Syrian officials said, including moving the manufacture of weapons to more hidden or fortified locations.

Abyar was visiting a manufacturing plant for missiles for Hezbollah that was hidden inside a stone quarry east of the city of Aleppo when he was hit, the Syrian officials said. "The facility was in an area designed to be hard to find and hard to hit," said one of the officials, an intelligence officer.

Iran blamed Sunday's strike on Israel and the head of the IRGC has vowed to retaliate.

The officials said the strike killed 17 other people, including Iran-aligned militiamen. It was the first targeting of an IRGC official since Israel bombed the Iranian consulate, they said.

But it is not the only attack it has carried out since then.

An air strike near the Syrian city of Homs on May 29 targeted a vehicle carrying parts for guided missiles from Syria to Lebanon, the Syrian intelligence officer said. Another strike on May 20 targeted members of Hezbollah, the officer said.

Before the Iran consulate attack, a series of air strikes in late March around Aleppo hit warehouses storing high explosives for missile warheads, the officer said.

Other attacks have targeted Syrian air defence systems that had in recent years given Hezbollah and Iranian military personnel some security to operate, including Russian-made Pantsir air defence systems, mobile missile launchers that the Syrian military uses, a Syrian military official said. Other strikes had targeted early-warning radar systems, the official said.

"In some cases Israel is hitting even before we install our equipment," the official said.

The Israeli government official said Israel's targets were advanced anti-aircraft weapons, heavy rockets and precision-guidance systems for missiles.

ISRAEL TIPPING THE BALANCE?

The number of Israeli attacks in Syria jumped dramatically after October 7, when Israel and Hamas went to war.

"The frequency has doubled," said the Washington Institute's Uysal.

Israel carried out 50 air strikes in Syria in the six months after the Gaza war began, she said. "These included attacks on Aleppo airport, the Nairab military airport, Damascus airport, and the Mezzeh military airport, which are key in weapon transfers. Weapons caches were also among the targets."

The strikes have included the killing of some 20 IRGC officials and more than 30 Hezbollah commanders, Uysal said. Between January and October of 2023, two IRGC officials and no Hezbollah commanders were killed by Israeli strikes in Syria, Uysal said.

"The attacks in Syria certainly stop arms and ammunition deliveries and damage the ability of Hezbollah or Iran to organise," said Lior Akerman of Reichman University, a former Brigadier-General in Israel's domestic security service.

Iran sends limited numbers of advisers to Syria, such as the senior IRGC officials killed in the consulate bombing. Hezbollah has deployed thousands of fighters there.

Hezbollah official Nawaf Musawi told the Iran-aligned Al Mayadeen TV channel in March that the group was opening new ammunition depots "and getting more precision missiles and better quality weapons by land, sea and air."

Farzan Sabet, a senior researcher at the Geneva Graduate Institute who specialises in Iranian foreign policy, said attacks on Israel by Hezbollah and Iran's allies in Iraq and Yemen during the Gaza war had taken a toll on Israel.

"But it has killed many more Hezbollah operatives and senior figures including IRGC personnel in Syria, so on balance it's a bigger loss" for Iran's allies, Sabet said.

(Report by Reuters)

"A surface-to-air missile was launched toward an Israeli Air Force UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) that was operating in Lebanese airspace. As a result, the UAV was damaged and fell in Lebanese territory," the Israeli military said.

Iran-backed Hezbollah said in a statement it hit a Hermes 900 aircraft, an Israeli-made reconnaissance and attack drone.

The Israel-Lebanon border has seen an uptick in hostilities over the past week, with both the Israeli military and Hezbollah striking locations outside the border strip where the exchanges of fire have been concentrated, and with increased intensity.

Earlier on Monday Hezbollah said it attacked with a "squadron of drones" an Israeli military post in the Golan Heights. Israel's military said it identified two drones crossing from Lebanon into northern Israel and falling in the northern part of the Golan Heights.

Israel's military also said its fighter jets struck two Hezbollah military structures and a launch post in the areas of Aitaroun and Ayta ash Shab in southern Lebanon.

(Report by Reuters)