Two lsrael Defense Forces troops have been killed battling Hezbollah terrorists in Southern Lebanon, the IDF said on Sunday afternoon.
One of the fallen soldiers was named as Sgt. 1st Class Maher Khatar, from the Golan Heights Druze village of Majdal Shams. He served as a combat engineering heavy equipment operator, the military stated.
According to Israel’s Ynet outlet, the two soldiers were killed by mortar fire or an anti-tank missile during defensive operations at a military position in Southern Lebanon, when a combat engineering force that included two D9 bulldozers went to extract a Puma armored personnel carrier that had become stuck.
During the rescue operation, one of the D9 bulldozers was reportedly hit, possibly by a mortar that struck a fuel tank or by a missile, resulting in the deaths of the two soldiers.
“In the incident in which Sgt. 1st Class Maher Khatar, of blessed memory, fell, another soldier also fell,” the army said. “His name has not yet been cleared for publication and will be published at a later time.”
In addition, a combat officer who sustained light wounds was evacuated for medical treatment in Israel. His family was informed, the IDF added.
The death toll among Israeli troops since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border terrorist massacre now stands at 926, according to IDF figures.
Israeli Defense Minister Yisroel Katz told Beirut on Shabbos to act swiftly against Hezbollah or else “Lebanon as a whole will pay the full price.”
Addressing Lebanese President Joseph Aoun directly during a situational assessment at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, Katz said, “Lebanon is not the United Nations. You [and Lebanon] committed to implementing the [ceasefire] agreement and disarming Hezbollah, and that is not happening.”
He continued, “We will not allow harm to our communities, we will not allow harm to our soldiers, and if the two stand against one another, the Lebanese government and Lebanon as a whole will pay the full price.”
Katz warned that as things stand, Beirut is forcing Israel to ensure the safety of its own citizens and soldiers at the expense of the Lebanese Republic.
“We have no territorial claims against Lebanon, but we will not be prepared for Lebanese territory to once again become what it was for many years—a base for firing at the State of Israel. We will not allow a return to that situation. Therefore we are addressing and warning: Act, and take action before we do even more,” the defense minister said.
If slain Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah “destroyed Lebanon, then [his successor], Naim Qassem, will also ruin it by continuing down this path,” Katz added.
Katz’s message was delivered in a recording from a meeting in the command bunker at the Kirya together with Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder, alongside other senior IDF commanders.
The IDF in an overnight strike on Shabbos attacked “key commanders” of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force in Beirut, the military announced.
The Quds Force’s Lebanon Corps “operated to advance terror attacks against the state of Israel and its civilians, while operating simultaneously for the IRGC in Iran,” it stated.
The Lebanon Corps served as a liaison axis between the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group and the Iranian regime and operated as a body supporting its force buildup, the Israeli military statement added.
“The IDF will not allow the Iranian terror regime elements to establish themselves in Lebanon and will continue to precisely eliminate the commanders of the Iranian terror regime wherever they operate,” concluded the statement.
Meanwhile, two soldiers of the army’s Givati Brigade were moderately wounded by terrorist anti-tank fire during a “defensive activity in Southern Lebanon on Friday, the IDF said over the weekend.
The troops of the brigade’s Rotem Battalion (435th), identified only as “M.” and N.” by the military, were evacuated to Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center’s Ichilov Hospital for treatment, it added.
Earlier on Friday, eight soldiers sustained injuries, including five who were seriously wounded, in a Hezbollah rocket attack targeting an IDF military position near the northern border. Among the lightly injured soldiers was the son of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Since Hezbollah joined the war against the Jewish state on March 2, the IDF struck over 600 terror targets across Lebanon “from the air, sea and ground,” the military announced in a statement on Sunday afternoon.
Israel’s strikes, which comprised some 820 munitions, eliminated more than 190 terrorists, including Abu Hamza Rami, the commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Lebanon, two commanders at the equivalent rank of colonel and three battalion commanders.
The IDF carried out 27 waves of strikes in the Beirut area, including five in the capital’s southern suburbs of Dahieh, a Hezbollah stronghold, it said.
The IDF’s Northern Command has provided “extensive fire support to the forces operating in forward defensive postures in the security zone and has been eliminating threats in real time,” the military added.
Throughout the day on Sunday, the IDF attacked several Hezbollah rocket launchers that had been used to fire rockets towards civilian communities the Jewish state’s north, the army announced.
“In recent days, the IDF has begun an operation for forward defense to create an additional layer of protection in order to distance threats from the residents of the north,” according to the military statement.
The IDF is operating powerfully against the Hezbollah terror group, which decided to join the campaign and operate under the auspices of the Iranian terrorist regime, and will not allow harm to the civilians of the State of Israel,” it concluded. JNS
