IDF claims it captured terror operative in Syria

A Lebanese citizen was was taken from the seaside town of Batroun in northern Lebanon by armed men overnight Friday and into Saturday, a Lebanese security source told ABC News.

A unit of the Israeli Navy led a "special operation" into Batroun where "a senior operative of Hezbollah, who serves as ‏an expert in his field, was apprehended," an Israeli military official told ABC News.

"In a special operation by Shayetet 13 in the Lebanese town of Batroun, a senior operative of Hezbollah, who serves as ‏an expert in his field, was apprehended. The operative has been transferred to Israeli territory and is currently being investigated by Unit 504," the IDF said in a statement.

An investigation is underway to ascertain the facts of what the Lebanese security source referred to as a kidnapping.

Hezbollah has not directly commented, only issuing a statement denouncing an Arab media outlet's details on the incident as unfounded, in which it refers to the "Zionist aggression in the Batroun area." The statement does address whether the person taken was a Hezbollah member.

Video circulating online via Lebanese media and geolocated to a building on coast in Batroun, shows about 20 armed men taking a man away from a building near the beach in the middle of the night.

Batroun is north of Beirut on Lebanon's coast, far away from the majority of the fighting and even airstrikes. Due to the naval nature of the raid, UNIFIL, the peacekeeping force in Lebanon which keeps a naval presence under German responsibility, officially denied involvement in the incident.

"UNIFIL has not been involved in facilitating any kidnapping or other violation of Lebanese sovereignty. Disinformation and false rumours are irresponsible and put peacekeepers at risk," a UNIFIL deputy spokesperson Kandice Ardiel told ABC News.

-ABC News' Ghazi Balkiz and Anna Burd

One person was killed and 11 others were injured in an Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut Saturday afternoon, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. There was no warning or evacuation order prior to the strike.

The strike hit a building across the street from the Al Hayat hospital.

No comment yet from IDF on the strike.

-ABC News' Ghazi Balkiz

The Israel Defense Forces announced Saturday that a strike on the area of Tyre in southern Lebanon a day earlier had killed Mousa Izz al-Din, the commander of Hezbollah’s forces in the coastal sector, and Hassan Majid Daib, Hezbollah’s artillery commander in the coastal sector.

The IDF alleged that the two Hezbollah commanders were responsible for firing over 400 projectiles at Israel over the last month alone.

In the past 24 hours, Israeli aircraft have struck more than 120 targets belonging to Hamas and Hezbollah, according to the IDF.

The IDF said its “soldiers are continuing to conduct limited, localized, targeted raids against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.” Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, the IDF said its troops “continue operational activity in the area of Jabaliya” in northern Gaza, “where dozens of terrorists were eliminated in aerial and ground activity.” In southern and central Gaza, including the area of Rafah, the IDF said its soldiers “operated to eliminate terrorists, dismantle terror infrastructure, and locate weapons.”

In a video released by Iranian state media on Saturday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened Israel and the United States with “a crushing response” over attacks on Iran and its allies.

“The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and to the resistance front,” Khamenei said in the video.

The supreme leader did not elaborate on the timing of the threatened attack, nor the scope.