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Hezbollah-Israel News: The Israel Defense Forces say they have captured a senior Hezbollah operative in a Special Forces landing raid in Lebanon

Hezbollah-Israel News: The Israel Defense Forces say they have captured a senior Hezbollah operative in a Special Forces landing raid in Lebanon

Israel’s military says it captured a high-ranking Hezbollah operative during an amphibious assault by special forces in northern Lebanon.

Members of the elite Shayetet 13 unit captured a suspected Hezbollah militant after landing on the coast in Batroun, a city in northern Lebanon, and then returned him to Israeli territory, an Israeli military official told CNN.

The official added that the captured operative is now being investigated by Unit 504, the intelligence unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Israel’s Shayetet 13, which operates out of Atlit Naval Base on Israel’s northern Mediterranean coast, is sometimes compared to the US Navy SEALs. The Israeli military previously described the Shayetet 13’s role to CNN as carrying out “strategic sabotage activities against enemy lines, including damaging vital wartime structures and enemy seaports.”

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported on Saturday that witnesses saw “unknown military forces landing on Batroun beach” at dawn the day before.

The troops “moved with all their weapons and equipment to a chalet near the beach, where they kidnapped a citizen, Imad Amhaz, and took him to the beach, (then) left him in speedboats in the open sea,” NNA reported.

The Lebanese government said its security services were investigating “an incident that took place in the Batroun area” at dawn on Friday.

Hezbollah released a statement about the incident of “Zionist aggression in the Batroun area,” but did not provide additional details. CNN has reached out to Hezbollah for comment.

An Israeli military official told CNN that the country’s forces “will continue to act where necessary to protect the State of Israel and its citizens.”

The raid comes just over a month after Hezbollah said it had targeted a naval base on Israel’s northern Mediterranean coast that is home to an elite unit of the Israeli navy – believed to be a reference to Shayetet 13.

Hezbollah claims that the attack took place on September 23. When asked for comment, IDF representatives said that “there were no casualties,” but did not confirm that the target was a naval base.

The video in the player above is taken from a previous report.

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