Israel says commandos seized Hizbollah operative from coastal town

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Israeli naval commandos launched a seaborne raid into northern Lebanon on Saturday, seizing what they said was a “senior operative” in the Lebanese militant group Hizbollah from the coastal town of Batroun.

The Israel Defense Forces “Shayetet 13” unit, the equivalent of US Navy Seals, apprehended an unnamed man that it simply said was “an expert in his field”. He was transferred to Israeli territory and was being interrogated, the IDF added.

The IDF statement followed the emergence of closed-circuit video footage from inside Lebanon apparently showing the captured man — handcuffed and with a shirt over his head — surrounded by more than a dozen uniformed soldiers and other individuals in civilian clothes.

Lebanese authorities said they were investigating the abduction of a sea captain, named by caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati as Imad Amhaz.

Transport minister Ali Hamieh said that Amhaz captained civilian and commercial ships, after graduating in 2022. In September, he had joined Batroun’s Maritime Sciences and Technology Institute for additional courses, renting an apartment nearby, Hamieh told Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed television station.

Hizbollah described what happened as a “Zionist aggression in the Batroun area”, but did give further details and did not confirm whether a member of the militant group was captured by Israel.

Israeli media has speculated that the suspect was a senior commander in Hizbollah’s naval unit. Military analysts said that the IDF would not have launched such a risky operation behind enemy lines if the target was not deemed “high value”.

The commando raid on Batroun, a predominantly Christian beach town located 50km north of Beirut, would mark the first operation of its kind inside Lebanon since hostilities erupted with Hizbollah more than a year ago.

The Lebanon-based militant movement began firing on northern Israel last year after the October 7 attack by Hamas from Gaza, triggering months of cross-border fire between the two foes. The conflict escalated in late September as Israel launched waves of air strikes across Lebanon, killing Hizbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, and started a land invasion of the country’s south.

An estimated 1mn Lebanese have been displaced by the conflict, with nearly 3,000 people killed, mostly in the past few weeks. Nearly 100 Israeli civilians and soldiers have been killed by Hizbollah fire in northern Israel and in the ground operation in southern Lebanon.

Israeli officials say their goal is to push Hizbollah back from the Israel-Lebanon border region and secure the safe return of some 60,000 northern Israeli residents displaced from their homes because of rocket, missile and drone fire by the Iran-backed group.

So far, the IDF ground offensive has progressed just a few kilometres into Lebanon, focusing on what Israeli military officials described as the “first belt” of Lebanese border villages.

The IDF last month claimed that it had captured an unnamed number of Hizbollah fighters on the battlefield after their surrender.