Khamenei.ir, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Israel has confirmed the k!lling of Hashem Safieddine, who was considered the most likely candidate to replace Hassan Nasrallah as Hezbollah’s leader.
Nasrallah was assassinated by Israel last month.
The Israeli military said in a statement that strikes in the suburb of Dahiyeh killed Hashem Safieddine and Ali Hussein Hazima, the head of the militant group’s intelligence branch, three weeks ago.
The airstrike had targeted a meeting of senior Hezbollah leaders. It was one of the heaviest bombardments to hit the area known as the Dahiya since an Israeli assault killed Hezbollah’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, on Sept. 27.
Safieddine was the head of Hezbollah’s highest political decision-making body, the executive council, and was reportedly picked as the successor to Nasrallah some years ago.
He was also a cousin of the former secretary general.
His fate was unknown after Israeli strikes on Dahiyeh on 3 October, which Israel said were targeting an underground bunker where the senior leader was living.
Hezbollah had reportedly not been able to re-establish contact with Safieddine since the strike and rescue workers were prevented from reaching the site of the bombing.
With the killing of Safieddine, only Naim Qassem, the deputy secretary general of Hezbollah, remains from Hezbollah’s public-facing senior leadership.
Qassem has been the face of the group since the assassination of Nasrallah.
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 pummeled by a series of fresh airstrikes on Tuesday.
The Israeli military leveled a building in the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut that it said housed Hezbollah facilities.
