UPDATE – Top Hezbollah commander killed in Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon

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By Zein Khalil

BEIRUT (AA) – A senior Hezbollah commander was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, according to the Israeli army.

A military statement said Ismail Yusuf Baz, the commander of Hezbollah’s coastal region, was killed in a drone attack in Ain Baal town in the city of Tyre.

Baz was ''a senior and veteran official in the military wing of Hezbollah,'' the statement said.

The Israeli army said Baz was responsible for advancing and planning rocket and anti-tank missile launches toward Israel from southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah, for its part, confirmed Baz’s death, without providing any further details.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency earlier reported fatalities in an Israeli airstrike on two vehicles in the town of Shihabiya in southern Lebanon, without providing details.

Tuesday’s attack came amid an exchange of cross-border fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah since last October following a deadly Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, which killed more than 33,800 people following a Hamas attack.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul