Hezbollah on the brink? Battalion commander surrenders to IDF, gives up valuable intel on military sites

The IDF announced Tuesday that Israeli soldiers captured a battalion-level commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force in a raid two weeks ago, in the first incident of its kind since the start of the war in Lebanon or Gaza.

The officer named Hassan Akil Jawad was the commander of the Ayta al-Sha’ab district and is the first commander of his rank to be captured alive by Israeli forces.

The fact that Jawad and several of his soldiers surrendered to IDF troops makes the incident even more significant and gives credence to recent media reports of the cratering morale among Hezbollah’s troops that may also have led to the recent breakthrough in the ceasefire talks.

Jawad was captured during a raid of Golani Brigade troops, who had received intelligence leading them to a shaft inside a military headquarters, where they found the commander and several soldiers who surrendered to them.

They were arrested and interrogated by field investigators of Unit 504 and then taken to the unit's detention facility for further interrogation in Israel.

During the interrogations, they gave up detailed information about the location of numerous terror sites in the Ayta al-Sha’ab area, which the IDF later published on a map.

לוחמי גולני עצרו את מפקד מרחב עייתא א-שעב של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה ומחבלים נוספים מ'כוח רדואן'. חקירתם על-ידי יחידה 504 הובילה לאיתור והשמדת מטרות טרור רבות במרחב
לכל הפרטים והתיעודים>>https://t.co/5prFinc2b0 pic.twitter.com/ZbGcNaOOsK

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) October 29, 2024

“The arrest of such a senior field commander is extremely unusual - as I believe, among Hamas in Gaza, after a year of war not a single Hamas battalion commander was taken prisoner,” said Doron Kadosh, Army Radio’s military correspondent.

“This has a very significant psychological effect and the goal is to break the spirit and motivation of other Hezbollah terrorists, and to provoke internal criticism of Hezbollah among its base - even the senior commanders surrender to the IDF and do not fight.”

“And not just the surrender, but also the delivery of critical information to the enemy: in an extremely unusual move, the IDF is publishing a very sensitive details of all the intelligence information. This has not happened in any terrorist investigation event to date,” he added.

The military meanwhile stated that over 100 terror targets were hit by airstrikes during the past day, including the launcher used in the rocket attack on Ma’a lot Tarshiha that killed a civilian earlier Tuesday.

Troops under the command of the 146th Division located numerous weapons during raids of dozens of targets, including anti-tank missile launch positions and military buildings.

⭕️DISMANTLED: 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐟 𝐚 𝐭𝐨𝐧 of explosives in underground terrorist infrastructure located in southern Lebanon.

Here is a closer look at an underground command center reaching a depth of approx. 8 meters below ground: pic.twitter.com/tPW8IaiSna

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 29, 2024

The division’s 2nd Carmeli Brigade, which lost four soldiers in an ambush last Wednesday, located another massive staging area containing huge stockpiles of weapons and equipment that was prepared for the Radwan Force’s planned invasion of northern Israel.

The compound included headquarters located only hundreds of meters from the border and eight meters underground, amid a civilian area. It contained half a ton of explosives and many other weapons, and was later detonated by the brigade.

Soldiers of the 91st Division also continued to destroy shafts, locate weapons and eliminate terrorists. During the fighting, they found anti-aircraft missiles, maps that include firing lines for the territory of Israel, and loaded launchers aimed at Israeli towns.