On Monday, Wissam Tawil, a high-ranking member of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force in southern Lebanon, was killed in an Israeli drone strike on his car. Tawil was the most senior member of the Shiite militant group to be killed in an Israeli strike since Hezbollah and Israel began trading fire across the Lebanese-Israeli border on October 8th, the day after Hamas carried out the deadliest terror attack in Israel’s history.

Israel immediately began bombarding Gaza in the aftermath of the attack, and the war has continued to expand in recent weeks.

According to a report by CNN, Hezbollah also acknowledged the death of Tawil, who also went by the nom de guerre Hajj Jawad, in an Israeli attack. The paramilitary group shared pictures of him alongside other top Hezbollah officials and Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of the Iranian elite unit that handles the country’s overseas operations who was killed in a US airstrike four years ago, an apparent indication of Tawil’s stature.

Israel has claimed responsibility for Tawil’s assassination. “As for the hit in south Lebanon, we did take responsibility,” Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14, “This is part of our war. We are targeting Hezbollah’s people, the infrastructure, the systems they managed to put in place in order to deter Israel,” Katz said.

“We make them pay a price; we did not set a goal to thwart 150,000 missiles. We set a goal to restore security to the residents of the north, to restore security to the residents of the south and to the state of Israel,” the minister said.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah on Tuesday launched a drone attack on an Israeli command base. Israel retaliated with air strikes as the fighting is continually intensifying between Lebanon and Israel along the border.  Amid Israel’s bombardment of the enclave, violence is flaring in the West Bank, in Iraq and Syria, and in the Red Sea.

An Iranian Warship Has Entered The Red Sea As Proxies Continue Attacks