Israel Says Elite Naval Commandos Abducted Hezbollah Operative

It appeared to be the deepest Israeli operation by sea and ground inside Lebanon during the current war.

Israeli naval commandos, ferried by speedboats, captured a man Israel called a senior Hezbollah operative in a sea-and-land operation on Friday that marked the deepest known incursion yet by Israeli forces into Lebanese territory during this war.

An Israeli military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with military protocol, said the forces brought the man back to Israel for interrogation. The operation was carried out by an elite Israeli naval commando unit, Shayetet 13, which is akin to the U.S. Navy SEALs, the official added.

Most of Israel’s campaign has been limited to aerial bombardment of southern and eastern Lebanon, along with the area just south of Beirut, all strongholds of support for Iran-backed Hezbollah. Israeli ground troops, so far, have been known to operate only in the south.

The commandos landed early Friday along the Mediterranean coastline in Batroun, a city about 20 miles north of the capital, Beirut, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency. They abducted the man, identified by Lebanese officials as a ship captain named Imad Ahmaz, from a nearby residential building before leaving by speedboats, the agency reported.

Lebanese media circulated CCTV footage on Saturday showing an individual being led away by more than a dozen armed men.

Hussen Dilbani and his wife, Rania, who lived next door in the building, said they had decided to leave the apartment after the raid, having already been displaced twice before, from southern Lebanon and then Beirut. They said they did not know whether their neighbor was a member of Hezbollah.

“I did not see their faces, just shadows and voices. They said they were from state security,” said Mr. Dilbani, recounting how the Israeli commandos had claimed to be Lebanese security forces as they broke down his neighbor’s door at around 2:30 a.m. on Friday. “I thought they came to arrest someone involved in something.”

Other residents in the building reported also being told by the Israeli commandos that they were Lebanese security officers, and said they had been ordered to stay inside their homes.

“Wherever you go, you are not safe,” Ms. Dilbani said.

Hezbollah called the incident a “Zionist aggression in the Batroun area,” but did not confirm that one of its members had been captured.

Batroun, a predominantly Christian city, is not a support base for Hezbollah, but it has been swamped in recent weeks by residents of nearby Beirut who have fled Israel’s bombing campaign.

Israel began an intensified military campaign against Hezbollah in September, nearly a year after the group began firing rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. The Israeli offensive has displaced more than a fifth of Lebanon’s population.

In previous conflicts, the Israeli military carried out commando operations deep inside Lebanon to kidnap and kill members of Hezbollah or Palestinian factions.

Ali Hamieh, Lebanon’s minister of public works and transport, said in an interview that the abducted man was a civilian ship captain taking a course at a maritime institute in Batroun, where he rented a nearby chalet.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said he had ordered the government to file a complaint to the U.N. Security Council over the abduction.

Reporting was contributed by Hwaida Saad, Dayana Iwaza and Liam Stack.