Israel’s military said it killed prominent Hezbollah official Ibrahim Aqil — along with other members of Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces — in a targeted strike in the Jamous area south of Beirut on Friday.
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Who is Ibrahim Aqil, the Hezbollah leader the IDF says it killed?
“Ibrahim Aqil had the blood of many innocent people on his hands — Israelis, Americans, French, Lebanese and more,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman, said in a video statement.
Aqil is also wanted by the U.S. government and has been designated a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.” The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program announced a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to the “identification, location, arrest, and/or conviction” of Aqil.
The State Department said Aqil was a “principal member” of the Hezbollah terrorist Islamic Jihad Organization that claimed the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April 1983 that killed 63 people, including 17 Americans, as well as the U.S. Marine Corps barracks bombing in October 1983, which killed 241 U.S. personnel.
He also “directed” the abduction of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s, it added.
Aqil appears to have taken over from Fuad Shukr, the senior Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli strike in the same southern Beirut suburb over a month ago, according to Amal Saad, a lecturer in politics and international relations at Cardiff University in Wales who researches Hezbollah.
“It’s a huge blow for sure,” Saad said of the strikes that have killed two of the group’s senior-most members within two months. But she cautioned that Hezbollah is designed to quickly and seamlessly replace even its top commanders. It was unlikely, she added, that the killing would impact the group’s operations.
The IDF’s Hagari said that at the time of the strike, Aqil and other Radwan Forces commanders were “gathered underground under a residential building in the heart of the Dahiyah neighborhood, hiding among Lebanese civilians, using them as human shields,” Hagari said. “They were in the middle of planning more terror attacks against Israeli civilians.”
He claimed that Aqil and the Radwan commanders killed Friday were planning Hezbollah’s “Conquer the Galilee” invasion. “These terrorists planned to do in northern Israel what Hamas did in southern Israel on Oct. 7,” Hagari said.