Israel confirms the murder of suspected Hezbollah successor Hashem Safieddine

Jerusalem, October 22 (EFE). – The Israeli army confirmed on Tuesday the death of Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was murdered at the end of September.

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Avichay Adraee confirmed the death of Hezbollah’s top official in an attack on October 4.

“We have reached Nasrallah, his successor, and most of Hezbollah’s leaders. We will know how to reach anyone who threatens the security of the citizens of Israel,” he said in a post on X late Tuesday.

Along with the death of Safieddine, who the Israeli military said was the head of Hezbollah’s executive council and also Nasrallah’s cousin, the IDF also announced the death of Ali Hussein Hazima, commander of Hezbollah’s intelligence cell.

In a statement on X, the IDF said both men were killed “during an attack on Hezbollah’s main intelligence headquarters in Dahieh. 3 weeks ago.”

According to Adraee, there were more than 25 members of Hezbollah’s intelligence wing in the command headquarters.

The headquarters were underground in Dahieh in the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Israel has stepped up strikes in the past month.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on October 8 that Israel had killed Safieddine, as well as his possible successor.

“We have eliminated thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement’s replacement,” he said, without naming names.

However, the IDF said at the time that they were studying his possible death, which the intelligence service was able to confirm on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, at least 10 people were killed and 31 injured in two separate Israeli attacks on the towns of Ksar al-Zaatar in southern Lebanon and Al-Maali in the east, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

In two brief statements, the ministry said at least five people were killed and 10 others injured in an Israeli attack on Al-Maali in the Baalbek-Hermel region of eastern Lebanon.

Five other Lebanese were killed and 21 injured in another attack on Ksar al-Zaatar, located in southern Nabatieh, the ministry added.

The ministry also announced that on Monday evening another 18 people, including four children, were killed and another 60 people were injured in an Israeli attack near the Rafik Hariri Hospital, located on the outskirts of Beirut.

At least 2,483 people have been killed since Israel launched its ground offensive in southern Lebanon on October 1, of which Israel claims more than 1,500 were militants.

Since the start of the firefight on the Israel-Lebanon border on October 8, 2023, until the escalation of the conflict, 52 people had been killed in Israel – half of them civilians – and more than 700 people in Lebanon, including more than 400 were Hezbollah fighters, and about 100 were civilians. EFE

jer-ime/pd