Israel abducts alleged Hezbollah official in unprecedented sea raid | Lebanon

The Israeli military abducted who it said was a senior Hezbollah official in an unprecedented operation on Saturday morning during which Israeli commandos landed on the shores of Batroun, northern Lebanon, captured the alleged official and escaped via speedboat.

In a statement, an Israeli military official said its forces captured a “senior operative of Hezbollah” and transferred him to its territory to be investigated by military intelligence. The media outlet Axios cited Israeli sources as saying the captured man – Imad Amhaz – was responsible for Hezbollah’s naval operations.

Lebanon’s caretaker minister of transport, Ali Hamie, said that Amhaz was a civilian boat captain, while Hezbollah did not comment on allegations that he belonged to the organisation. Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said Lebanon would be submitting a complaint to the UN security council, and that he had asked Lebanon’s military and the UN’s peacekeeping mission to investigate the incident.

The Israeli naval raid was a first of its kind, with Israeli soldiers landing in north Lebanon – an area unaffiliated with Hezbollah and almost 100 miles from the Lebanon-Israel border.

“An unidentified military force carried out a landing operation on the beach of Batroun, and moved … to a chalet near the beach, where it kidnapped the citizen Imad Amhaz and … left by speedboats to the open sea,” Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.

Surveillance footage of the incident showed a man with his hands pinned behind his back being led by a column of soldiers.

“The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] will continue to act wherever necessary to protect the state of Israel and its citizens,” an Israeli military official said in a statement.

The Lebanese transport minister, Ali Hamieh, said that the abduction of the Amhaz could be a violation of UN resolution 1701, which is supposed to govern security dynamics between Israel and Lebanon after the 2006 war.

“The kidnapping of Amhaz took place 100 metres from his place of residence. If it is proven that the kidnapping took place via a naval landing, where is the implementation of resolution 1701?” Hamieh said.

Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which started on 8 October 2023 after the militant group launched rockets at Israel “in solidarity” with Hamas’s attack a day prior, has generally spared north Lebanon.

Israeli troops have been conducting ground raids into south Lebanon since 30 September, but within a few kilometres of the border. Previous Israeli operations against Hezbollah in non-border areas have been conducted via aerial bombing.

Israeli warplanes continued their aerial campaign across the country on Saturday afternoon, killing one and injuring 15 others in a rare daytime bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs, which occurred without warning. Israel also struck Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, the focal point of much of its bombing over the past week.

Hezbollah fired rockets and drones on Saturday, with a rocket injuring 19 people in Tayibe in central Israel.

Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 2,968 people and wounded more than 13,300 over the past year, the vast majority of whom were killed and injured during the past five weeks.