Beirut, Jul 31 (IANS): Hezbollah said Wednesday that civil defence teams were still searching for Fouad Shokor, a senior military advisor to Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in the rubble after he was attacked by an Israeli drone in southern Beirut a day earlier.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday that an Israeli drone conducted a targeted strike on a position near the Shura Council of Hezbollah in Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut, "eliminating Fouad Shokor."

While not confirming Shokor's death, Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group and political party, said that since the incident, civil defence teams have been working diligently but slowly to remove the debris due to the condition of the destroyed floors.

Shokor was also the director of Hezbollah's precision missile project and held the position of second-in-command within the organisation, Xinhua news agency reported.

Israel threatened over the past days to launch a military operation that will make Hezbollah pay a heavy price after a missile fell Saturday in the town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, killing 12 people and wounding several others. Hezbollah said it had "absolutely nothing to do with the incident" and dismissed the allegations as false.

Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on October 8, 2023, following a barrage of rocket attacks launched by Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas' attack on Israel one day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon.