Israeli Reservist Dies of Injuries from Wednesday Hezbollah Attack

Israeli drone shot down above al-Aishiyeh

On Wednesday, 18 Israelis were wounded, some severely, in Arab al-Aramshe when a Hezbollah drone exploded, and a pair of rockets were fired at the site. Today, Israel revealed that a deputy company commander among the wounded reservists has died.

The slain man was identified as 27-year-old Maj. Dor Zimel, a deputy company commander in Eztiani Brigade of Israel’s reservists. He was critically injured in the drone attack, one of the reservists wounded in Wednesday’s incident.

Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in near daily tit-for-tat attacks across the border, and each incident with casualties leads to retaliation, and retaliation for that retaliation. The attacks continued into the weekend.

Hezbollah reported shooting down an Israeli drone on Sunday over the village of al-Aishiyeh, saying they believed the drone to be on a combat mission.

Israeli fighters continued to attack buildings in Ayta ash-Shaab, saying they believed Hezbollah fighters were gathered at one of the structures. IDF added that they had also struck areas in Naqoura and Majdal Zoun.

Hezbollah continued to fire rockets against areas in Galilee, lightly injuring one Israeli. Notably, Hamas issued a statement Sunday claiming credit for their own attacks on Galilee, saying they’d fired 20 Grad rockets against northern Israel. Grad rockets are older models that are not tightly targeted, used in saturation bombing.

While Hamas has a limited presence in Lebanon, the group is seen as aligned with Hezbollah, or at least mutually opposed to Israel, which continues its invasion of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. The international community has been trying to broker a peace deal to prevent Israel invading southern Lebanon, but so far, those deals haven’t made a lot of progress.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.