Israel has confirmed the killing of the presumed subsequent chief of Hezbollah in an airstrike on southern Beirut earlier in October.
In a press release on Tuesday night, the Israeli army stated strikes within the suburb of Dahiyeh had killed Hashem Safieddine and Ali Hussein Hazima, the pinnacle of the militant group’s intelligence department, three weeks in the past.
It was the primary time Israel confirmed the killing of essentially the most senior political official in Hezbollah after the previous secretary common Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah had but to touch upon Israel’s declare.
Safieddine was the pinnacle of Hezbollah’s highest political decision-making physique, the manager council, and was reportedly picked because the successor to Nasrallah some years in the past. He was additionally a cousin of the previous secretary common and was seen as having a lot of the identical charisma that impressed the cult of persona round Nasrallah.
His destiny was unknown after Israeli strikes on Dahiyeh on 3 October, which Israel stated have been concentrating on an underground bunker the place the senior chief was dwelling.
Hezbollah had reportedly not been in a position to re-establish contact with Safieddine for the reason that strike and rescue employees have been prevented from reaching the positioning of the bombing.
With the killing of Safieddine, solely Naim Qassem, the deputy secretary common of Hezbollah, stays from Hezbollah’s public-facing senior management. Qassem has been the face of the group for the reason that assassination of Nasrallah, however he doesn’t take pleasure in the identical reputation amongst Hezbollah supporters that the late secretary common had.
It stays unknown who will take the helm as the subsequent chief of the group. In a speech two weeks in the past, Qassem stated that appointing a brand new chief was a posh process and would take a while. Alongside blows to its political management, nearly all of Hezbollah’s senior army cadre has been killed by Israel within the final three months.
The strike that killed Safieddine additionally killed 25 different Hezbollah leaders, based on Israel. Final week, Israel killed the chief of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken stated throughout a visit to Israel on Tuesday that leaders there ought to “capitalise” on Sinwar’s loss of life as a possibility to finish the struggle in Gaza and safe the discharge of hostages taken as a part of the lethal Hamas assault that began the struggle. Blinken additionally pressured the necessity for Israel to do extra to assist improve the movement of humanitarian assist to Palestinians.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s workplace known as his assembly with Blinken, which lasted greater than two hours, “pleasant and productive.”
Regardless of the losses in its command construction, Hezbollah has insisted that the group has retained its organisational power. The group has stated that is evidenced by what it says is Israel’s lack of progress in south Lebanon.
Hezbollah fighters have been engaged in every day clashes with Israeli troops since Israel introduced its floor incursion into Lebanon on 30 September. Israeli tanks have been noticed in villages alongside the Israel-Lebanon border and full cities have been levelled in south Lebanon by Israeli distant detonations.
Israel has stated its floor operation into south Lebanon is supposed to degrade Hezbollah infrastructure alongside the border to forestall the group from launching cross-border assaults into Israel. The extent of Israel’s success in its mission is unclear, with restricted media entry to south Lebanon.
Safieddine was born in 1964 in southern Lebanon and was a founder member of Hezbollah. He was thought to have spent a few years in Qom, the Iranian non secular metropolis, and was entrusted by Hezbollah with a wide range of duties over the a long time, together with managing the organisation’s intensive portfolio of authorized and unlawful companies.
The US and Saudi Arabia had put him on their respective lists of designated “terrorists” in 2017.
Not like Nasrallah, who lived in hiding for years, Safieddine continued to look brazenly at latest political and spiritual occasions. In the course of the previous yr of hostilities with Israel, he addressed funerals and different occasions that Nasrallah had lengthy averted for safety causes.
Over the previous few days, Israel has stepped up its aerial marketing campaign in Lebanon, putting infrastructure linked to a Hezbollah-linked financial institution, Al-Qard Al-Hassan, which it accused of financing the organisation. The financial institution, which is a part of Hezbollah’s charitable arm, has greater than 30 buildings throughout Lebanon.
Israel additionally carried out strikes on Larger Beirut on Monday night time, killing 18 folks, together with 4 kids, and wounding 60 in a strike in Dahiyeh. The strike additionally triggered “main injury” to the close by Rafik Hariri college hospital, Lebanon’s largest public hospital.
Hezbollah launched a rocket salvo at Kiryat Shmona, north Israel in addition to downing an Israeli Hermes 450 drone with a surface-to-air missile on Tuesday afternoon.
Preventing started between Hezbollah and Israel after Hezbollah launched rockets towards Israel on 8 October 2023, “in solidarity” with Hamas’s assault the day prior. Preventing has dramatically escalated since Israel launched “Operation Northern Arrows” on 23 September.
Greater than 2,500 folks have been killed and above 11,850 have been wounded in Lebanon over the previous yr.
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