The IDF killed Radwan Force commander Abu Khalil Barji in an airstrike on Majdal Selm in southern Lebanon on Saturday. Radwan Force is Hezbollah's elite special operations unit — a formation of roughly 2,500 fighters trained for cross-border infiltration, anti-armour warfare, and operations behind Israeli lines. The unit was built under Imad Mughniyeh and later commanded by Ibrahim Aqil, both killed by Israel in previous campaigns.
The strike follows a week in which the IDF severed southern Lebanon's infrastructure connections to the north. The Qasmiyeh Bridge was destroyed on Saturday, and at least two bridges over the Litani River were hit earlier in the week, cutting the last major road links between the southern zone and Beirut. Two IDF armoured divisions — the 36th and 91st — are now committed to the ground operation, with the 7th Armoured Brigade conducting raids and a Northern Command officer telling Israeli media the campaign could extend until late May.
Barji's killing fits the pattern authorised by Netanyahu and Defence Minister Katz in mid-March, which granted the IDF and Mossad advance permission to carry out targeted killings of senior Hezbollah and Iranian figures without prior cabinet approval when time-sensitive intelligence emerges. The combination of bridge destruction, armoured manoeuvre, and leadership strikes follows Israeli doctrine from the 2006 Lebanon War — isolate the zone, attrit command structures, then expand. Lebanese President Aoun called the Qasmiyeh Bridge strike "a prelude to ground invasion," though the ground operation is already under way. Lebanon's death toll has passed 1,029 since 2 March, with 111 children among the dead and 1.2 million displaced. UNICEF deputy chief Ted Chaiban stated the equivalent of one classroom of children is killed or wounded each day.
The operational question is whether Radwan Force's decentralised cell structure — designed precisely for scenarios in which senior commanders are killed — allows continued effective resistance against two armoured divisions, or whether the loss of experienced leadership degrades the unit's capacity for the complex anti-armour ambushes that inflicted significant Israeli casualties in 2006. Hezbollah has launched 565 attack waves against Israel since 2 March, according to ACLED data, but the rate and sophistication of those attacks as the ground operation deepens will be the measure of how much Barji's death matters tactically.
