Hezbollah released a video clip Sunday depicting the terrorist group's preparations for the abduction of Israel Defense Forces soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev from the Lebanon border area in 2006.
The clip broadcast first on Al-Manar Lebanese television station to mark the seventh anniversary of the Second Lebanon War, reveals for the first time the identity of Khaled Bazzi, the commander of the abduction unit, who went by the nickname al-Hajj Qasim and operated under the command of the head of Hezbollah’s military wing, Immad Mughniyeh.
The clip shows Hezbollah fighters training and preparing for the abduction and receiving orders from Bazzi, who was killed during the war in the fighting at Bint Jbail.
Regev and Goldwasser were kidnapped in July 2006 by a Hezbollah unit that attacked their IDF vehicles on the border road. Three other soldiers were killed in the fighting.
The site of the kidnapping was not incidental according to the clip – Hezbollah had surveyed the location for weeks ahead of time.
Hezbollah kept track of the IDF's communication system and knew that at the location they selected the two Hummers carrying the soldiers were out of contact with the command center. The clip also says Hezbollah was aware there were no cameras that would enable the military to respond quickly. In the clip, Hezbollah recreates the scene in a setting faithful to the original with the Hummers driving along the road, the place where the soldiers sat down, and the order to carry out the operation.
Two years after the attack, the bodies of Regev and Goldwasser were returned to Israel. Israeli authorities had assumed the two were dead, but only with the bodies could it be made official.
Hezbollah released a different video last year documenting the actual kidnapping. In it, Hezbollah commandos breach the border fence and attack an IDF Hummer. The clip ends as Hezbollah militants open the door of the Hummer, but it doesn't show them remove Goldwasser and Regev from the vehicle, which had been hit a few minutes earlier by an anti-tank missile.
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