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IDF Kills Top Hezbollah Official Ali Hussein Barji In Air Strike At Funeral

Screen Shot Of Smoking Car Outside A Hezbollah Funeral

Screenshot/Twitter/@JoeTruzman

Ilan Hulkower Contributor
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Ali Hussein Barji, Hezbollah’s commander of aerial forces in southern Lebanon, reportedly died Tuesday in a car explosion caused by an IDF air strike outside of a funeral.

Braji was attending the funeral of Wissam al-Tawil, a senior commander of Hezbollah’s special forces who died in an air strike Monday, when his car was struck in a targeted Israeli air strike, The Times of Israel reported. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) acknowledged that it carried out the attack and released a video of the incident on Twitter.  (RELATED: Three Senior Hamas Officials Killed In Lebanon) 

“Today, the IDF eliminated Ali Hossein Barji, commander of the southern Lebanon region of Hezbollah’s air unit, using an air force aircraft. Ali led dozens of operations using explosive and collection drones against Israel and the IDF forces, and even the attack on a command headquarters [in] the north earlier today,” the IDF tweeted.

“Just before the funeral of a senior Hezbollah official, Wissam Tawil, an attack on a vehicle near his brother’s house in the village of Khairbat Salem in southern Lebanon,” Roi Kais, the Arab Affairs Correspondent for Kan 11, claimed in a tweet sharing a video of the aftermath of the reported strike.

A close-up video of the aftermath of the explosion was tweeted out by Joe Truzman, a Middle East analyst for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies who focuses on Palestinian terrorism and non-state actors in the region.

“It appears a vehicle was targeted in the southern Lebanon village of Kherbet Selm. The strike took place near the funeral procession of Hezbollah commander Wissam Taweel,” Truzman wrote.

Hezbollah has been lobbing rockets and sending drones into Israel since Oct. 8 out of solidarity with Hamas, and the Lebanese terror organization has suffered some 130 losses in personnel from retaliatory strikes by the Jewish state.

Braji was responsible for dozens of drone attacks in northern Israel since the outbreak of violence including a strike on the IDF’s Northern Command Headquarters in Safed, The Times of Israel reported.