Jerusalem, Oct 22 (EFE).- The Israeli military confirmed late Tuesday the death of Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed late September.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, confirmed the top Hezbollah official’s death in an attack on Oct. 4.
“We reached Nasrallah, his successor, and most of the leaders of Hezbollah. We will know how to reach everyone 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 post on X, the IDF said that both men were killed “during a strike on Hezbollah’s main intelligence HQ in Dahieh approx. 3 weeks ago.”
There were more than 25 members of Hezbollah’s intelligence division inside the command headquarters, according to Adraee.
The headquarters was located underground in Dahieh in the southern suburb of Beirut, where Israel has increased strikes in the last month.
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Oct. 8 that Israel had killed Safieddine, as well as his possible successor.
“We took out thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement of the replacement,” he said without giving names.
However, the IDF said then that they were studying his possible death, which intelligence was able to confirm on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, at least 10 people were killed and 31 wounded in two separate Israeli strikes on the towns of Ksar al-Zaatar in the south of Lebanon and Al-Maali in the east, the Lebanese ministry of public health reported.
In two brief statements, the ministry said that at least five people were killed and 10 others wounded in an Israeli strike on Al-Maali in the Baalbek-Hermel region of eastern Lebanon.
Five other Lebanese were killed and 21 wounded in another attack on Ksar al-Zaatar, located in southern Nabatieh, the ministry added.
The ministry also announced that another 18 people were killed on Monday night, including four children, and another 60 were injured in an Israeli strike carried out near the Rafik Hariri Hospital, located on the outskirts of Beirut.
Since Israel launched its ground offensive in southern Lebanon on Oct. 1, at least 2,483 people have died, of which Israel claims that more than 1,500 were militants.
Since the beginning of the exchange of fire on the Israel-Lebanon border on Oct. 8, 2023 until the escalation of the conflict, 52 people had died in Israel – half of them civilians -a nd more than 700 people in Lebanon, of which more than 400 were Hezbollah fighters, and about 100 were civilians. EFE
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