Hashem Safieddine: Israel claims their defence forces have killed Hezbollah official tipped for top job

The Israeli military says one of its airstrikes outside Beirut has killed a top Hezbollah official who had been widely expected to be the group’s next leader.

There was no immediate confirmation from the militant group about the fate of Hashem Safieddine.

Safieddine, a powerful cleric within the party ranks, was expected to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, one of the group’s founders, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September.

Israel said Safieddine was killed by an airstrike in early October in a southern suburb of Beirut. Around 25 other Hezbollah leaders were killed during the strike, Israel said.

Israeli strikes in recent months have killed much of Hezbollah’s top leadership, leaving the group in disarray.

The Beirut suburb where Safieddine was killed was pummelled by a series of fresh airstrikes on Tuesday. The Israeli military levelled a building in the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut that it said housed Hezbollah facilities.

The collapse sent smoke and debris flying into the air a few hundred metres from where the militant group had just briefed journalists about a weekend drone attack that damaged the Israeli prime minister’s house.

Hezbollah’s chief spokesman, Mohammed Afif, said the group was behind the attack on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in the coastal town of Caesarea and hinted that it might attempt future strikes there.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Tuesday with Netanyahu as part of his 11th visit to the region since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.

After Israel’s killing last week of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Blinken is trying to revive efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza. So far, both Israel and Hamas appear to be digging in.

Blinken stressed the need for Israel to do more to help increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians and said Israel should “capitalise” on Sinwar’s death as an opportunity to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of hostages there.

Blinken landed hours after Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets into central Israel, setting off air raid sirens in populated areas and at its international airport, but causing no apparent damage or injuries.

An Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Monday night destroyed several buildings across the street from the country’s largest public hospital, killing 18 people and wounding at least 60 others. The Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah target, without elaborating, and said that it hadn’t targeted the hospital itself.

Staff at another Beirut hospital feared it would be targeted after Israel alleged Hezbollah had stashed hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold in its basement, without providing evidence.

The director of the Sahel General Hospital denied the allegations and invited journalists to visit the hospital. Reporters saw no sign of anything out of the ordinary.

“We have been living in terror for the last 24 hours,” hospital director Mazen Alame said. “There is nothing under the hospital.”

Many in Lebanon fear Israel could target its hospitals in the same way it has raided medical facilities across Gaza. The Israeli military has accused Hamas and other militants of using hospitals for military purposes, allegations denied by medical staff.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday that 63 people had been killed over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,546.

The US, Egypt and Qatar have brokered months of talks between Israel and Hamas, trying to strike a deal in which the militants would release dozens of hostages in return for an end to the war, a lasting ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

But both sides have accused each other of making new demands and the talks ground to a halt in August.

Israel said it launched its ground invasion of Lebanon to try to stop near-daily rocket attacks from Hezbollah since the start of the war in Gaza. Israel has said it plans to strike Iran. Which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah ? in response to its ballistic missile attack on Israel earlier this month.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostages. Around 100 of the captives are still held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded tens of thousands, according to local health authorities. It has also caused major devastation across the territory and displaced around 90 per cent of its population of 2.3 million.