BEIRUT: Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah leader whom Israel believes it killed in an air attack in Beirut on Tuesday, has been one of the group’s main military figures since it was set up by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards more than forty years ago.
Part of the generation of Lebanese who founded Hezbollah during the Israeli attack of Lebanon in 1982, Shukr was a close friend of the group’s late commander Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in Damascus in 2008, Hezbollah said.
Sources said Shukr fought Israeli forces during Israel’s 1982 invasion alongside both Mughniyeh and Mustafa Badreddine, another of Hezbollah’s veteran leaders who was killed in Syria in 2016.
An Israeli drone attack in Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik has hit Fuad Shukr, who is considered second top leader in the group. Hezbollah reported on Tuesday that “the assassination attempt failed” and that Shukr is “undetectable.”
According to media reports, the strike left the targeted residential compound damaged. Two people, including a woman, were killed and many injured in the strike. The attack, which took place shortly before 8 p.m. local time, came in the backdrop of Israeli threats to deal Hezbollah “a painful blow” following Israeli officials held the group responsible for the targeting of a football stadium in the town of Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights on Saturday. However, Hezbollah strongly rejected any role in the strike.
