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The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) acknowledged on June 4 that one of its officers was killed in a Hezbollah anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) attack in southern Lebanon.
The slain officer was named as Cpt. Eitan Shmuel Lemberg from the 7th Armored Brigade’s 75th Battalion. The unit operates Merkava Mk 4M main battle tanks.
A Hezbollah fighter fired an ATGM at an IDF tank operating north of the Litani River, killing Lemberg, according to the IDF, which didn’t provide any further details.
Over the weekend, Israeli troops crossed the Litani’s 90-degree bend, just across from the border town of Metula, and stormed Beaufort Castle, which overlooks the Galilee Panhandle in northern Israel, as well as the Nabatieh area in southern Lebanon.
They have since, however, come under increasing attacks by Hezbollah. Lemberg was in fact the fourth soldier to be killed there.
During the day, Hezbollah issued several statements, announcing attacks on a number of IDF tanks to the north of Litani, including right next to Beaufort. Some of the tanks were targeted with ATGMs, while others were hit with fiber optic-guided first person view (FPV) suicide quadcopters.
The group also released video footage of a drone attack that targeted a Merkava Mk 4M near the town of Zawtar El Charqiyeh, located north of Litani, two days earlier. The drone used in the attack, a fiber optic-guided FPV suicide quadcopter equipped with a thermal imager, hit the rear door of the tank.
Fiber optic-guided FPV quadcopters — which are immune to jamming, cheap to produce and easy to operate — have been a game changer for Hezbollah.
The group’s success in equipping these drones with thermal imagers for nighttime operations has been a blow to the IDF, which is investigating the matter.
In a statement released a day earlier, the military said that “various review processes are being conducted alongside the implementation of solutions and operational methods to contend with the threat, in accordance with lessons learned from the field and the operational situation assessment.”
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