Israel officially acknowledges its responsibility for assassinating Hezbollah commander Wissam Tawil in a missile launched via drone on his car in southern Lebanon

On Monday evening, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced that Israel was responsible for the assassination of Hezbollah military leader Wissam Tawil.

This came in a televised interview conducted with him by the private Israeli Channel 14, and it is the first confession from a senior Israeli official about the assassination of a prominent Hezbollah field leader.

Katz added, “We’re making Hezbollah pay prices, and we are working to push it away from the borders more and more in a practical way, and this could end with intense international pressure, by the way, on Iran, to put pressure in turn on Hezbollah, because it realizes the price, as this could develop tomorrow… To all-out war”.

Katz threatened Hezbollah if the war developed, saying, “It will receive a blow equivalent to 50 times what happened in the Second Lebanon War in 2006… We don’t seek that, nor do they… Those countries around the world aren’t interested in expanding the front”.

He continued, “With regard to the damage caused to southern Lebanon, we bear responsibility for the assassination of the actual leader of the Radwan forces… We have set a goal to restore security to the residents of the north and south and to the State of Israel”.

Katz answered a question in which the interviewer asked, “Do you mean Wissam Tawil, who was killed on Monday? Does Israel bear responsibility for his assassination?”

Katz replied, “Yes”.

On Monday, the Lebanese Hezbollah group announced the martyrdom of prominent field leader Wissam Tawil in an Israeli raid that targeted a car in southern Lebanon.

Following his killing, the Hebrew Channel 12 quoted an unnamed Israeli army source as saying, “Tawil was responsible for the shooting that was carried out at the air base in Meron”.

Over the past few days, the intensity of mutual bombardment has escalated on both sides of the Lebanese and Israeli borders, one of which was the Israeli army’s confirmation, on Sunday, that damage was caused to the Meron military air control base after it was targeted by Hezbollah.

On Saturday, Hezbollah announced that it had targeted the base with 62 missiles, as an initial response to Israel assassination of Saleh al Arouri, the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, in the southern suburb of Beirut, on January 2.

“In solidarity with the Gaza Strip,” Hezbollah and Palestinian factions in Lebanon have exchanged intermittent daily bombardment with the Israeli army since October 8, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries on both sides of the border.