An Israeli strike on south Lebanon on Monday killed a senior commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, three security sources told Reuters.

The security sources identified him as Wissam al-Tawil, the deputy head of a unit within the Radwan force. They said he and another Hezbollah fighter were killed when their car was hit in a strike on the Lebanese village of Majdal Selm.

“This is a very painful strike,” one of the security sources said. Another said, “things will flare up now.”

Israeli bombardment has killed more than 130 Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon since cross-border shelling began in the aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israeli territory on Oct. 7. Another 19 have been killed in Syria.

Hezbollah’s secretary-general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel in two televised addresses last week not to launch a full-scale war on Lebanon.

  • @JaderickEnglish
    4•6 months ago

    I was specifically curious about the first source as I have heard from other sources (namely Behind the Bastards) that the US initially did not care much for Israel, the Soviets helped more, and it wasn’t until the early 60s after an aggressive lobbying campaign was Israel a solid US ally.

    The Wikipedia page on the 1948 Arab-Israeli war has this:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab–Israeli_War

    Up to 100,000 Arabs, from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centres eastwards.[40]

    This situation caused the United States to withdraw its support for the Partition Plan, encouraging the Arab League to believe that the Palestinian Arabs, reinforced by the Arab Liberation Army, could put an end to the plan. However, the British decided on 7 February 1948 to support the annexation of the Arab part of Palestine by Transjordan.[41]

    And later:

    Thanks to funds raised by Golda Meir from sympathisers in the United States, and Stalin’s decision to support the Zionist cause, the Jewish representatives of Palestine were able to sign very important armament contracts in the East.

    Which suggests that initially the US government did not support Israel as the ABC article suggests. The reporting seems to get around the factual claims by just quoting their source, but I think that “Democrats for Israel” dude is stretching his historical claims.