Israeli military says it killed cleric set to succeed late Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallahin an airstrike almost three weeks in the past.
According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Hashem Safieddine died in an airstrike within the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
Hezbollah, a strong Lebanese Shiite Muslim group combating Israel, didn’t affirm Safieddine’s dying.
Its earlier chief, Nasrallah, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on Beirut on September 27.
After airstrikes close to town’s airport on October 4, Hezbollah officers mentioned that they had misplaced contact with Safieddine, whereas US media quoted Israeli officers as saying the cleric had been the goal of the bombing.
That evening big explosions shook townleaving plumes of smoke that would nonetheless be seen till morning.
On Tuesday, the IDF issued a declaration stating that Safieddine had been killed together with Ali Hussein Hazima, described as commander of Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters, in an assault on the group’s important intelligence headquarters in Beirut.
He accused Safieddine of directing “terrorist assaults towards the State of Israel” for years and of participating in Hezbollah’s “central decision-making processes.”
Hezbollah is a navy, political and social group that wields appreciable energy in Lebanon. It is designated as a terrorist group by Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom and different nations.
Safieddine himself was designated a “global terrorist” by the United States and Saudi Arabia in 2017.
Nasrallah’s cousin, he undertook spiritual research in Iran and his son was married to a daughter of General Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s strongest navy commander, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq in 2020.
He is believed to have been in his 60s on the time of his dying.
In a speech in Beirut this summer time, Safieddine described how Hezbollah considered succession to its management.
“In our resistance, when one chief is martyred, one other takes up the flag and strikes ahead with a brand new, assured and powerful dedication,” he advised the AFP information company.
Israel has gone on the offensive towards Hezbollah after almost a yr of cross-border hostilities sparked by the struggle in Gaza, saying it needs to make sure the protected return of border space residents displaced by Hezbollah rocket, missile and drone assaults.
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, over the previous yr, at the very least 2,464 Lebanese have been killed and almost 12,000 injured.
During the identical interval, Hezbollah attacked Israel with hundreds of rockets and drones, and at the very least 59 folks have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights, the Reuters information company studies.
