The Israeli Air Force "struck a vehicle in the area of Kunin in Lebanon in which Ismail al-Zin was located," the military said. "Al-Zin was a significant commander in the Anti-Tank Missile Unit of Hezbollah's Radwan Forces."
Hezbollah confirmed the death of Al-Zin in a statement which did not specify if he belonged to Radwan, an elite unit.
Hezbollah, which has a powerful arsenal of rockets and missiles, has exchanged regular fire with Israeli forces since its ally, Palestinian militant group Hamas, carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gaza.
The village of Kunin is about 10 kilometres (six miles) from the Lebanon-Israel border.
The strike came two days after the Israeli military said they had killed the deputy head of Hezbollah's rocket unit in a strike on southern Lebanon.
Friday's strike in the town of Bazuriyeh killed Ali Abdel Hassan Naim "one of the leaders for heavy-warhead rocket fire and responsible for conducting and planning attacks against Israeli civilians", the army said at the time
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant later toured the army's northern command and said the military would keep up its operations against Hezbollah.
"We will make them pay a price for every attack that comes out from Lebanon," he said.
Also on Friday seven Hezbollah fighters were killed by an Israeli strike in Syria, according to a Britain-based war monitor.
Israel did not comment on that report, but at the northern command Gallant added: "We have turned from the ones who are repelling Hezbollah to the ones who are chasing them. We reach all the places that Hezbollah is present."
Cross-border fire since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza on October 7 has killed at least 348 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters, and at least 68 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
The fighting has displaced tens of thousands in southern Lebanon and in northern Israel, where the military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed.
Hezbollah says it is targeting Israel in support of Hamas.
Hamas's October attack resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 32,782 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Two civilians injured in Israeli strikes on Damascus: ministry
Damascus (AFP) Mar 31, 2024 -
Israel launched strikes near Damascus Sunday that injured two civilians, Syria's defence ministry said, the latest in a slew of deadly Israeli attacks on Syria this week.
It came two days after a war monitor reported Israeli strikes that killed dozens of Syrian soldiers and allied fighters, fuelling new concerns of a wider conflagration,
Such strikes have increased after Israel's war with Palestinian militant group Hamas, an ally of Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah group, began on October 7.
"The Israeli enemy launched air strikes from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a number of sites near Damascus and injuring two civilians," Syria's defence ministry said.
Earlier, state media reported that "air defence systems intercepted enemy targets in the Damascus area".
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Israel targeted "the area of the scientific research centre in Jamraya, Damascus, setting fire to the site," referring to a Syrian government facility.
The latest incident comes after the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of source in Syria, said Israeli air strikes on Friday killed 53 people in Syria, including 38 soldiers and seven members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah.
It was the highest Syrian army toll in Israeli strikes since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, said the monitor.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes targeting pro-Iran groups fighting alongside the forces of President Bashar al-Assad in the country's 13-year civil war.
Friday's attack targeted "a rocket depot belonging to Lebanon's Hezbollah" near the Aleppo airport in northern Syria, according to the Observatory.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli army across the country's southern border since October.
"Syria and Lebanon have become one extended battleground from the Israeli perspective," Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, told AFP following Friday's strikes.
Syria's war began after the government repressed peaceful protests in 2011 and escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in jihadists and foreign armies.
The war has killed more than 507,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure and industry.
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