Israeli naval commandos, ferried by speedboats, captured a man Israel called a senior Hezbollah operative in a sea-and-land operation on Friday that marked the deepest known incursion yet by Israeli forces into Lebanese territory during this war.
An Israeli military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with military protocol, said the forces brought the man back to Israel for interrogation. The operation was carried out by an elite Israeli naval commando unit, Shayetet 13, which is akin to the U.S. Navy SEALs, the official added.
Most of Israel’s campaign has been limited to aerial bombardment of southern and eastern Lebanon, along with the area just south of Beirut, all strongholds of support for Iran-backed Hezbollah. Israeli ground troops, so far, have been known to operate only in the south.
The commandos landed at dawn Friday along the Mediterranean coastline in Batroun, a city about 20 miles north of the capital, Beirut, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency. They abducted the man, identified by Lebanese officials as a ship captain named Imad Ahmaz, from a nearby residential building before leaving by speedboats, the agency reported.
Lebanese media circulated CCTV footage on Saturday showing an individual being led away by more than a dozen armed men.
Speaking on television, a local resident said that people had heard the loud sound of a door breaking, which prompted them to check what was happening.
“Everyone get inside. This is Lebanese State Security,” one of the armed men shouted in a Lebanese accent, according to the resident.
Hezbollah called the incident a “Zionist aggression in the Batroun area,” but did not confirm that one of its members had been captured.
Batroun, a predominantly Christian city, is not a support base for Hezbollah, but it has been swamped in recent weeks by residents of nearby Beirut who have fled Israel’s bombing campaign.
Israel began an intensified military campaign against Hezbollah in September, nearly a year after the group began firing rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. The Israeli offensive has displaced more than a fifth of Lebanon’s population.
In previous conflicts, the Israeli military carried out commando operations deep inside Lebanon to kidnap and kill members of Hezbollah or Palestinian factions.
Ali Hamieh, Lebanon’s minister of public works and transport, said in an interview that the abducted man was a civilian ship captain taking a course at a maritime institute in Batroun, where he rented a nearby chalet.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said he had ordered the government to file a complaint to the U.N. Security Council over the abduction.
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