Day 780 - After killing of Hezbollah #2, IDF preps for retaliation
The Times of Israel Daily Briefing
The Times of Israel
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 November 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.
Military correspondent Emanuel Fabian joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode.
Hezbollah’s military chief of staff, Haytham Ali Tabatabai, was killed in a Beirut suburb yesterday in a targeted strike that also killed another four Hezbollah operatives. We learn about Tabatabai and his previous roles in the terror organization, as well as his Iranian roots. And as IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir launched a snap readiness drill on the northern border, Fabian weighs in on the likelihood of Hezbollah retaliation.
Over the past several days, there has been an uptick in IDF airstrikes after Palestinian gunman have opened fire on Israeli troops or risen from the tunnels they were trapped in. We also hear about military investigations that have reportedly revealed that Hamas spent years collecting sensitive intelligence on IDF bases and equipment, especially tanks and their operations, from soldiers’ social media activity, allowing the terror group to disable tanks and raid army bases during its October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel. What new steps are being taken to prevent this?
As Zamir begins a round of official dismissals of high-ranking staff for their roles leading up to the October 7, 2023, failures, Defense Minister Israel Katz continues to clash with the IDF Chief of Staff, saying that he has ordered the defense establishment comptroller to re-evaluate the findings made by an external panel of former senior officers that looked into the IDF's October 7 investigations. Fabian attempts to make sense of this power struggle.
Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.
For further reading:
In escalation, IDF kills Hezbollah military chief in targeted Beirut strike
IDF on alert as Hezbollah weighs response to military chief’s killing
Hamas spent years mining IDF troops’ social media for intel on bases, tanks – report
IDF chief officially dimisses Oct. 7’s heads of intel, operations, Southern Command
Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Podwaves.
IMAGE: This undated photo, released by Hezbollah Military Media, November 23, 2025, shows Hezbollah's military chief of staff Haytham Tabtabai. (Hezbollah Military Media vía AP)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Times of Israel's daily briefing. |
| 0:04.9 | Today is Monday, November 24th, Day 780 of the war. |
| 0:10.6 | Amanda Borchelle, Dan, here with their military correspondent, Emmanuel Fabian. |
| 0:14.5 | Hi, Mani. |
| 0:15.0 | Thanks for joining me today. |
| 0:16.2 | Hi, Amanda. |
| 0:16.8 | Israel announced yesterday that it had killed Chazbalah's military chief of staff in a targeted |
| 0:22.2 | airstrike in a suburb of Beirut. We'll hear more about Chesbalah's number two. The IDF has |
| 0:28.9 | also increasingly struck Hamas gunmen surfacing from the tunnels in the Israeli-controlled side of the Gaza |
| 0:36.0 | Strip. Mani will tell us more. |
| 0:38.4 | The IDF Chief of Staff has dismissed several major senior officers who were responsible for |
| 0:45.1 | the lead-up into the failures of October 7th. |
| 0:48.5 | We'll learn about who this was and also the clash, the increasing clash between the |
| 0:53.1 | defense minister and the chief of staff. |
| 0:55.8 | And this is a drill. This morning, the IDF launched a snap drill in the northern border. |
| 1:01.6 | What does this mean for the future? All of this and more when we're back. |
| 1:18.7 | And we're back. I'm Amanda Borsal, Dan, here with our military correspondent, Immanuel Fabian. |
| 1:25.7 | Yesterday, Chazbalah's military chief of staff was killed in a Beirut suburb. It was a targeted strike that also killed four other Hezbollah operatives. So before we |
| 1:30.4 | talk about the strike, Manny, tell us more about this number two from Hezbollah. So Haitham Ali Tavatabai. |
| 1:38.3 | And if you know anything about surnames, his surname is Iranian, actually. He had an Iranian father and a Lebanese mother |
| 1:47.0 | he was born in Beirut but mostly grew up in South Lebanon joined Hezbollah and his youth in the |
| 1:52.3 | 1980s sort of one of the I guess more founding members of the of the terror organization |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Times of Israel, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Times of Israel and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.