Hezbollah says Israel kills top commander amid fears of Gaza war escalation.

Israel has killed top Hezbollah commander Wissam al-Tawil in an air strike in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese armed group says. Hezbollah on Monday announced the killing of one of its commanders for the first time in three months of cross-border clashes with Israeli forces. Israel has killed top Hezbollah commander Wissam al-Tawil in an air strike in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese armed group says. Hezbollah on Monday announced the killing of one of its commanders for the first time in three months of cross-border clashes with Israeli forces. Al-Tawil is the highest-ranking Hezbollah member to be killed since the group and Israel began exchanging near-daily cross-border fire after the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7. Like the assassination of Hamas’s deputy leader last week in Beirut, al-Tawil’s killing has raised fears of a wider conflict. Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan reports from Ibil El Saki, in Southern Lebanon.

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An Israeli air strike killed senior Hezbollah commander Wissam al-Tawil on Monday, a development that is likely to result in a further escalation between the two sides, which have been involved in a low intensity conflict since 7 October.

Tawil died along with another fighter from the Lebanese armed group, according to the Reuters news agency. The Israeli air strike targeted the pair's car in the village of Majdal Selm.

Known as “Jawad”, Tawil was a deputy head of a unit in the elite Radwan force and played an important role in Hezbollah's recent confrontations with the Israeli army.