A phone call and then a strike: How Israel killed Hezbollah military commander Faud Shukr

Before he was killed in an Israeli strike last month, Faud Shukr, the military commander of Hezbollah, received a phone call which prompted him to move to a more vulnerable position inside the building he was hiding in, a recent report has said.

Shukr, who had been hiding since his involvement in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 from Athens to the US, was killed in the strike along with his wife, two other women, and two children on 30 July.

A report by Wall Street Journal said that moments before being killed, Shukr had received a phone call which instructed him to move to the seventh floor of his building, which was his residence. Before that, he was at the second floor, which was his office. He had been in the same building for years.

After he moved, the Israel Defense Forces struck the building, killing him. He was so elusive that one of his neighbours was quoted in the WSJ report as saying that they had never seen him, and he was "like a ghost".

The report also said that Hezbollah and Iran are investigating the security breach.

It is being reported that Israel's advanced technological capabilities outmatched Iran's countersurveillance efforts.

Shukr was involved in a number of attacks across the world. He was a key figure in a cross-border raid that killed eight Israeli soldiers and ignited war with Lebanon, in 2006.

He is also considered to be an essential figure in improving Hezbollah's rocket arsenal from 15,000 to 150,000.

He was also wanted in the United States of America for his role in the 1983 bombing of a US Marines barracks in Beirut. As many as 241 American servicemen died in the attack.

In 1985, after Hezbollah’s formal establishment, Shukr became its military commander. He was rarely seen in public since then.

Only earlier this year, he made a brief public appearance at the funeral of his nephew. He had died in a fight with Israel.