Israel’s military said on Tuesday it could confirm the death of Hashim Safi al-Din, the likely successor to slain Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah did not immediately confirm the reports.
Photo: TASR/AP, Baz Ratner
Israeli military tanks maneuver in northern Israel near Israel’s border with Lebanon on October 1, 2024.
A senior official of the movement, Hashim Safi ad-Din, was said to have been killed in one of its airstrikes near Beirut earlier this month, according to the army. News of his possible death began to spread shortly after the attack, but Israel has only now officially confirmed his death.
Hashim Safi ad-Din was considered a likely successor to former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. He died at the end of September in an Israeli attack in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Around 25 other prominent figures of the pro-Iran movement were killed during the October attack, according to the Israeli military. Meanwhile, Israeli strikes in recent months have killed most of Hezbollah’s top leadership, causing the group to disintegrate, the AP agency writes.
The Beirut suburb where Safí was killed about three weeks ago was hit by a series of new airstrikes on Tuesday. The Israeli army razed a building in the Beirut suburb of Dahiya, which it said housed the facilities of the Lebanese movement.
Israel says its goal is to expel fighters from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah from the border areas so that tens of thousands of Israelis can return to their homes, where they have been driven out by Hezbollah’s cross-border fire.
The Iranian-backed Lebanese movement attacked Israeli territory as a sign of solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is waging a war against the radical Hamas movement. The conflict was triggered by an unprecedented attack by Palestinian militants on the territory of Israel on October 7, 2023.
Source: spravy.pravda.sk
