Israel says it captured senior Hezbollah operative in amphibious special forces raid
By Tamar Michaelis and Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN
(CNN) — The Israeli military says it has captured a senior Hezbollah operative in an amphibious special forces raid in northern Lebanon.
Members of the elite Shayetet 13 force seized the alleged Hezbollah operative after landing on the coast in Batroun, a town in northern Lebanon, then took him back to Israeli territory, an Israeli military official told CNN.
The official added that the seized operative was now being investigated by Unit 504 – an intelligence unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Israel’s Shayetet 13, which operates out of the Atlit naval base on Israel’s northern Mediterranean coast, is sometimes likened to America’s Navy SEALS. The Israeli military has previously described Shayetet 13’s role to CNN as carrying out “strategic sabotage activity across enemy lines, including damaging vital structures during wartime and the enemy’s seaports.”
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Saturday that eyewitnesses had seen “an unidentified military force carrying out a landing operation on the Batroun beach” at dawn the day before.
The troops “moved with all their weapons and equipment to a chalet near the beach, where they kidnapped the citizen Imad Amhaz and took him to the beach, (then) left by speedboats to the open sea,” NNA reported.
The Lebanese government said its security services were investigating “an incident that took place in the Batroun area,” at dawn Friday.
Hezbollah released a statement referring to an incident of “Zionist aggression in the Batroun area” but did not provide further details. CNN has reached out to Hezbollah for comment.
The Israeli military official told CNN the country’s forces “will continue to act wherever necessary to protect the state of Israel and its citizens.”
The raid comes a little more than a month after Hezbollah said it had targeted a naval base on Israel’s northern Mediterranean coast that houses an elite Israeli naval commando unit – thought to be a reference to Shayetet 13.
Hezbollah claims that attack took place on September 23. Asked at the time for comment, the IDF said “no injuries were reported” – but it did not confirm that the naval base had been targeted.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
