The Israeli army said on Monday in a rare statement about its operations in Syria that it had killed a “central figure” of Hamas in Syria who was responsible for firing rockets at Israel from Syrian territory.
• Also read: Hezbollah military leader killed in Israeli attack
Hassan Akasha was killed, the army said, in Beit Jinn, a Syrian town near the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan and the Lebanese border, in a region under the control of Bashar al-Assad's regime.
“He was a central figure responsible for Hamas firing rockets into Israel from Syrian territory in recent weeks,” the army said in its statement.
“We will not allow terrorism to be carried out from Syrian territory and will hold Syria responsible for any activities originating from its territory,” the army added.
Since the war in Syria began in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian territory, mainly targeting forces backed by Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah, allies of Damascus and sworn enemies of the Israeli state, as well as the Syrian army.
But the Israeli army is generally silent on the operations in Syria attributed to it, tirelessly repeating when asked about the issue that it “cannot comment on information provided by foreign media.”
Earlier on Monday, a Lebanese security official told AFP that a senior military official from the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite party allied with Hamas, was killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon. The Israeli army has not commented on the attack.
In the afternoon, Hezbollah announced the death of “Commander Wissam Hassan Tawil,” who was killed in combat in Lebanon. This is the highest-ranking Hezbollah military personnel killed by the Syrian formation since the opening of the front with Israel in support of the Palestinian Hamas.
These two raids come after the deaths of Hamas' number two, Saleh al-Arouri, and six other officials and leaders of the Palestinian Islamist movement in an attack attributed to Israel on January 2 in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
There have been daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah on the border between Israel and Lebanon since October 7th.
Hezbollah says it is acting to support Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007, where the war is now in its fourth month.