Mustafa Badreddine was killed in the Israeli attack near Damascus International Airport on Friday, Lebanese al-Mayadeen television channel reported.

Badreddine was the commander of Hezbollah's military arm, its chief of intelligence, and adviser to the movement's Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah.

He was the cousin and brother-in-law of the top Hezbollah commander, Imad Mughniyeh, who was likewise assassinated by the Israeli regime in Damascus in 2008. Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, killed Mughniyeh by remotely detonating a bomb planted in the spare tire of a parked SUV in the Syrian capital.

Lebanon's Hezbollah has confirmed the death of its top commander, Reuters reported.

Pro-Hezbollah activists on the social media were paying homage to the commander. Mughniyah's son, Jihad, was also killed in an Israeli airstrike in Syria in January 2015.

Israel is widely known for its support for terrorists trying to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. According to Israel's Channel 2 television, the number of militants having been treated by Israeli medical staff since 2011 has reached 2,100.

In December 2015, the British newspaper Daily Mail said the Israeli regime had saved the lives of more than 2,000 Takfiri militants since 2013.

The Syrian army has repeatedly seized sizable quantities of Israeli-made weapons and advanced military equipment from militants in the Arab country.

Lebanon has been sporadically affected by the foreign-backed militancy that has been taking its toll for the past five years.

Hezbollah has frequently announced that its military role in Syria is aimed at preventing the spillover of the Syrian crisis into Lebanon; Press TV reportd.

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