IDF eliminates ‘significant’ Hezbollah terrorist as group continues efforts to rearm through smuggling

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck and killed a high-ranking Hezbollah commander deep within Lebanese territory on Wednesday, in one of its most significant strikes since the start of the ceasefire with the terror group over two months ago.

According to the IDF, the Israeli Air Force “conducted an intelligence-based strike and eliminated Mahran Ali Nasser Al-Din, a significant terrorist in Hezbollah’s Unit 4400.”

Nasser al-Din was a key figure in the terror group’s weapons smuggling operations, the IDF added.

“He was directly involved in coordinating with smugglers operating along the Syria-Lebanon border,” the military said, stressing that this constituted “a clear threat” to Israel’s security and violated “the understandings reached between Israel and Lebanon.”

Hezbollah's Unit 4400 continues to operate along the Lebanon-Syria border. In an airstrike on a vehicle in the Lebanese village of Al-Qasr, north of Hermal in the Bekaa Valley (see aerial photograph of the strike location), a member of the unit named Mahran Ali Nasser al-Din was… pic.twitter.com/4W3nGLjqLK

— Israel-Alma (@Israel_Alma_org) February 26, 2025

According to Lebanese reports, the strike targeted Nasser al-Din’s car in the region of northern Hermel, which is close to the Syrian border and some 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Israel. A passenger traveling with Nasser al-Din was also killed, the report added.

Hezbollah’s Unit 4400 once operated a vast smuggling network to transport weapons, equipment and funds from Iran through Iraq and Syria into Lebanon.

“During the war, the IDF conducted extensive strikes on Hezbollah’s Unit 4400 and its commanders,” the military stated, including the eliminations of its commander Muhammad Ja’far Qasir, and his designated successor, Ali Hassan Gharib.

Since the collapse of the Assad regime and the significant losses in personnel and weapons, the group has struggled to reactivate smuggling routes along the Syrian border. Despite the ceasefire, Israel has struck in these regions several times in the past months.

The Hezbollah MP for the Baalbeck-Hermel, Ihab Hamadeh, condemned the Israeli strike as a “crossing of all lines.”

“The enemy is targeting the citizens of South Lebanon, the Bekaa, the North, and the capital, in full view of those who are trying to convince us of their concern for sovereignty, while we hear no stance or see behavior commensurate with that concern,” Hamadeh said.

The strikes came as the new Lebanese government held – and later won – a vote of confidence with the support of Hezbollah’s bloc.

Notably, the new government in a statement said only the state’s military should be tasked with the defense of the country, omitting the mention of the phrase “armed resistance,” which allowed Hezbollah to claim it had right to keep its weapons outside of state control in order to fight the “Israeli enemy.”

The Israeli strikes were praised by David Daoud, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Freedom of Democracies.

“In 08/23, I argued Israel should expand its MABAM campaign into Lebanon to degrade Hezbollah in preparation for a future war. Israel now seems to be doing so after that war occurred – and it should continue the campaign to degrade what's left of Hezbollah's arsenal and what the Lebanese government and authorities will not finish off,” Daoud wrote on 𝕏.

The Hebrew acronym “Mabam” refers to “the war between wars,” a decade-long Israeli effort to prevent the strengthening and degrade existing capabilities of the Iranian axis in the region. This was mostly accomplished by overnight airstrikes on smuggling convoy which mostly went unacknowledged by Israel.

“Following the fall of the Assad regime and the rise of the new regime in Syria, the Iranian weapons corridor that ran from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon has been disrupted for the time being,” wrote Israel’s Alma Research Center.

“Nevertheless, in the Homs area and west of it (an area considered a central geographical anchor of the corridor), we estimate that weapons remain that Hezbollah has not yet managed to transfer to Lebanon before the fall of the Assad regime,” the center said, estimating that Hezbollah is now attempting to retrieve those weapons.

“The Iranians and Hezbollah have not yet given up on using the corridor and will attempt to operate it in a new form,” Alma added.

Speaking to Ynet News this week, an Israeli military source explained, “We are operating very aggressively against all Hezbollah targets, and this can be seen in the strikes over the past few days.”

He added that in addition the strikes along the Syrian border which target arms transfers, Israel also continues to strike “against Hezbollah violations that do not receive a response from the international ceasefire monitoring mechanism,” as well as conducting “targeted eliminations of operatives in southern Lebanon.”

“We see that they are trying to return in some way,” the source said.