IDF says Lebanon strike targeted Syrian operative who was plotting attacks on behalf of Iran

Lebanon said an Israeli attack on Friday wounded six people as Israel said it targeted a Syrian terror operative who planned attacks under Iranian instructions. “The Israeli attack near the town of Hawsh al-Sayyed Ali in the Hermel district led to six wounded, including five Syrian nationals, two of them women, and one Lebanese,” Lebanon’s health ministry said, without specifying if one of the Syrians was the target of the Israeli strike. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that “an enemy military drone targeted a car” in the town, located close to the Syrian border, an area largely been spared such attacks since an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire was agreed in June. Israel’s military named the targeted operative as Yusuf Ali al-Hassoun, who it said “operated under the direction of the Iranian regime and advanced terrorist attacks targeting Israeli civilians and IDF (Israeli army) soldiers operating in southern Syria.” It did not say whether the suspect was operating as part of a particular terrorist group. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Newsletter email address Get it By signing up, you agree to the terms Hassoun allegedly “planned and advanced attacks” against soldiers “that were thwarted, including the launching of explosive drones and rockets toward IDF soldiers in southern Syria.” The IDF “will continue to operate to eliminate immediate threats on all fronts,” it said, without immediately clarifying whether it believed Hassan was killed in the strike. Syria’s former ruler Bashar al-Assad was an ally of Iran and Tehran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, which drew Lebanon into the Middle East war this year by attacking Israel. The IDF has been deployed to nine posts inside southern Syria since Assad’s fall in December 2024, mostly within a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone on the border between the countries. Advertisement Israel also maintains troops in a self-declared “security zone” running around 10 kilometers (six miles) inside Lebanon along the border. Violence has decreased since a ceasefire following a US-Iran understanding in June, and a US-sponsored Lebanon-Israel framework agreed later that month that involves the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon’s south and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the region, starting in test areas known as “pilot zones.” The process however has largely stalled. 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