Hezbollah confirmed on Sunday that terrorist Ali Karaki, the Southern Front commander and third-ranking official in the organization, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Karaki perished along with Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, during the Israel Defense Forces’ attack on Beirut on Friday.
Previously, the IDF had announced Karaki’s death in the Friday airstrike, which targeted an underground facility in Beirut. According to the military, the compound housed senior Hezbollah officials during a high-level meeting.
The IDF also reported that the strike resulted in the deaths of at least 20 other Hezbollah leaders, including individuals who were closely associated with Nasrallah.
“More than 20 other terrorists of varying ranks, who were present at the underground headquarters in Beirut located beneath civilian buildings, and were managing Hezbollah’s terrorist operations against the state of Israel, were also eliminated,” the IDF’s statement confirmed.
Among the other figures named by the Israeli military were Abed al-Amir Muhammad Sablini and Ali Naaf Ayoub.
Ali Karaki, the Southern Front commander, was born in 1967 in Ain Bouswar, a town in Lebanon’s Nabatieh Governorate. After completing his higher education, he joined Hezbollah during the Lebanese Civil War. His involvement in the group intensified, and he eventually played a role in the 2006 Lebanon War. Karaki later ascended to Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, which serves as the organization’s top command structure.
In February 2024, Israeli forces attempted to assassinate Karaki in a car bombing in Nabatieh, but he was not in the vehicle that was targeted.
{Matzav.com Israel}