By Humeyra Pamuk, Maayan Lubell and Nidal al-Mughrabi
TEL AVIV/JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) – Israel on Tuesday confirmed it had killed Hashem Safieddine, the heir apparent to late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah who was killed last month in an Israeli strike against the Iranian-backed Lebanese terror group.
The soldiers said that Safieddine was killed in a strike carried out three weeks ago in an area south of Beirut, which is the first confirmation of his death. Earlier this month, Israel said he may have been removed.
There was no immediate response from Hezbollah to Israel’s statement that it had killed Safieddine.
“We have reached Nasrallah, his position and the top leadership of Hezbollah. We will reach anyone who threatens the safety of the citizens of the State of Israel,” said Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi.
Israel has been mounting attacks on Lebanon after a year of border clashes with Hezbollah, Iran’s most feared militant group in the Middle East. This organization has been working in support of Palestinian terrorists who are fighting Israel in Gaza, but it is facing the brunt of the killing of its top leaders in Israeli airstrikes in recent weeks.
A relative of Nasrallah, Safieddine was appointed to its Jihad Council – the body responsible for military operations – and its executive council, which oversees Hezbollah’s financial and administrative affairs.
Safieddine played a prominent role speaking for Hezbollah during the last year of the conflict with Israel, speaking at funerals and other events that Nasrallah had been unable to attend for a long time due to security reasons.
Israel has so far shown no signs of retreating from its operations in Gaza and Lebanon even after killing several leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, losing Nasrallah, the powerful secretary-general, in an airstrike on September 27.
Politicians say Israel is aiming to fill a tight gap before taking over the US administration following the November 5 election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
BLINKEN IN THE MIDDLEAST TOUR
Israel’s confirmation of Safieddine’s death came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday to take part in the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by freeing hostages on October 7 and ending the war in Gaza.
After repeated failed attempts to cut a deal between Israel and Hamas, Blinken is making his 11th trip to the Middle East since the Gaza war broke out – and his last before a presidential election that could reverse US policy.
Blinken was also seeking ways to ease the conflict in Lebanon, where at least 18 people were killed overnight, including four children, and 60 were injured in an Israeli airstrike near Beirut’s main provincial hospital.
Blinken faced an uphill battle on both fronts.
He raised hopes in the US that the death of Hamas leader Sinwar – who is accused of igniting a year of devastating wars by planning a deadly attack by soldiers from Gaza on Israeli territory on October 7 last year – will provide a new opportunity for peace.
In a statement issued by his office, Netanyahu said that the elimination of Sinwar “would have a positive effect on the return of the hostages, achieving all the objectives of the war, and the day after the war”.
But there was no mention of a possible ceasefire after a year of war in which Hamas’s military power has been greatly reduced and Gaza has been greatly reduced, most of its 2.3 million Palestinians displaced.
On the other hand, Hamas refused to release a number of hostages in Gaza held on October 7, 2023, attacking Israel without Israel’s promise to end the war and withdraw from the area.
As Blinken met with Israeli leaders, Hezbollah called off talks while fighting with Israel, and claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Netanyahu’s vacation home on Saturday.
Hezbollah announced a series of attacks on Israel on Tuesday, including what it said were Israeli military positions near Haifa and Tel Aviv, suggesting its forces had survived Israel’s biggest offensive in decades of conflict.
Israeli strikes continued across Lebanon on Tuesday, including one that caused the collapse of a multi-storey building in central Beirut, prompting many panicked residents to flee.
Israel’s offensive has driven at least 1.2 million Lebanese from their homes and killed 2,530 people, including at least 63 in the past 24 hours, the Lebanese government said on Tuesday.
