Israel on Tuesday confirmed it had killed Hashem Safieddine, the inheritor obvious to late Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah who was killed final month in an Israeli assault concentrating on the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group.
The army mentioned Safieddine was killed in a strike carried out three weeks in the past in Beirut’s southern suburbs, its first affirmation of his dying. Earlier this month, Israel mentioned he had most likely been eradicated.
There was no fast response from Hezbollah to Israel’s assertion that it had killed Safieddine.
“We now have reached Nasrallah, his substitute and most of Hezbollah’s senior management. We’ll attain anybody who threatens the safety of the civilians of the State of Israel,” mentioned Israeli military chief Lieutenant Common Herzi Halevi.
Israel has been finishing up an escalating offensive in Lebanon after a 12 months of border clashes with Hezbollah, essentially the most formidably armed of Iran’s proxy forces throughout the Center East. The group has been appearing in assist of Palestinian militants preventing Israel in Gaza however is reeling from a spate of killings of its senior commanders in Israeli airstrikes in current weeks.
A relative of Nasrallah, Safieddine was appointed to its Jihad Council – the physique accountable for its army operations – and to its govt council, overseeing Hezbollah’s monetary and administrative affairs.
Safieddine assumed a distinguished position talking for Hezbollah over the last 12 months of hostilities with Israel, addressing funerals and different occasions that Nasrallah had lengthy been unable to attend for safety causes.
Israel has to this point proven no signal of relenting in its Gaza and Lebanon campaigns even after assassinating a number of leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, which misplaced Nasrallah, its highly effective secretary-general, in a Sept. 27 airstrike.
Diplomats say Israel goals to lock in a robust place earlier than a brand new U.S. administration takes over following the Nov. 5 election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump.
BLINKEN ON MIDEAST TOUR
Israel’s affirmation of Safieddine’s dying got here as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday to capitalise on the killing of Hamas’ chief Yahya Sinwar by securing the discharge of the Oct. 7 assault hostages and ending the struggle in Gaza.
After repeated abortive makes an attempt to dealer a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Blinken was making his eleventh journey to the Center East because the Gaza struggle erupted – and the final earlier than a presidential election that might upend U.S. coverage.
Blinken was additionally looking for methods to defuse the battle in Lebanon, the place in a single day not less than 18 folks had been killed, together with 4 kids, and 60 injured by an Israeli airstrike close to Beirut’s fundamental state hospital.
Blinken confronted an uphill wrestle on each fronts.
He spelled out U.S. hopes that the dying of Hamas chief Sinwar – blamed for triggering a 12 months of devastating warfare by planning the lethal militant assault from Gaza on Israeli territory on Oct. 7 final 12 months – will present a brand new alternative for peace.
In an announcement issued by his workplace, Netanyahu mentioned Sinwar’s elimination “could have a constructive impact on the return of the hostages, the achievement of all of the targets of the struggle, and the day after the struggle”.
However there was no point out of a attainable ceasefire after a 12 months of struggle by which Hamas’ army capabilities have been drastically degraded and Gaza largely diminished to rubble, with most of its 2.3 million Palestinians displaced.
For its half, Hamas has refused to free scores of hostages in Gaza seized in its Oct. 7, 2023, raid on Israel with out an Israeli pledge to finish the struggle and pull out of the territory.
As Blinken huddled with Israeli leaders, Hezbollah dominated out negotiations whereas preventing continues with Israel, and it claimed accountability for a drone assault concentrating on Netanyahu’s vacation house on Saturday.
Hezbollah introduced dozens of assaults in opposition to Israeli targets on Tuesday, together with what it mentioned had been Israeli army websites close to Haifa and Tel Aviv, suggesting its capabilities have survived Israel’s largest onslaught in a long time of hostilities.
Israeli strikes additionally continued throughout Lebanon on Tuesday, together with one among which induced the precipitous collapse of an multi-storey constructing close to central Beirut, sending extra panicked residents fleeing.
Israel’s offensive has pushed not less than 1.2 million Lebanese from their properties and killed 2,530 folks, together with not less than 63 over the previous 24 hours, the Lebanese authorities mentioned on Tuesday.
