An Israeli airstrike on Friday killed a senior Hamas commander inside a car in Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed.
The strike eliminated Hamas official Samer al-Hajj and critically wounded his bodyguard in the Lebanese city of Sidon about 40 miles from the border with Israel, according to Reuters. The IDF released a statement confirming the attack and describing al-Hajj as "responsible for the recruitment and training of terrorists to attack the State of Israel."
"We will continue operating to eliminate the threat of Hamas, no matter what arena the terrorist organization operates in," the IDF statement added.
The Israeli military has been fighting Lebanon’s Hezbollah since October when the Iran-back terrorist group launched rockets at northern Israel in support of Hamas. An Israeli strike in late July killed Hezbollah’s most senior military commander, Fuad Shukr, as a response to a Hezbollah rocket attack days earlier that killed 12 children and teens in the Golan Heights.