Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said Israel eliminated Hezbollah’s former chief Hassan Nasrallah’s successor, Hashem Safieddine. He also urged Lebanese people to free their country from the militant group.
“We have degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities; we took out thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself, and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement of his replacement. Today, Hezbollah is weaker than it has been for many many years,” Netanyahu said.
“It is your choice. You can now take back your country. You can return it to a path of peace and prosperity. If you don’t, Hezbollah will continue to try to fight Israel from densely populated areas at your expense,” he said in his statement.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant earlier in an announcement about Hashem Safieddine claimed that he was eliminated. This would be the latest shock to Hezbollah’s hierarchy, as Israel began ground operations in southwest Lebanon, extending its incursions to a new zone.
Safieddine, the senior Hezbollah official, was widely expected to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, the Shi’ite Muslim movement’s longtime leader assassinated in an Israeli airstrike on south Beirut on Sept. 27. Safieddine has not been heard from publicly since another Israeli airstrike late last week.
“Hezbollah is an organisation without a head. Nasrallah was eliminated, his replacement was probably also eliminated,” Gallant told officers at the Israeli military’s northern command centre, in a brief video segment distributed by the military.
Overnight, Israel again bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs where Hezbollah is headquartered and said it had killed a figure responsible for the heavily armed Iranian proxy militia’s budgeting and logistics, Suhail Hussein Husseini – the latest in a strong of assassinations of some of Hezbollah’s top officials.
In northern Israel not far from the Lebanon border, warning sirens sounded regularly throughout Tuesday as authorities said Hezbollah fired almost 200 rockets into Israel.
Targets again included Haifa, the northern port city where there were multiple reports of damage to buildings from missile debris. Israel’s military said it had struck the launchers that fired the missiles at Haifa.
The mushrooming Israeli-Hezbollah conflict has killed well over 1,000 people in Lebanon in the past two weeks and prompted the mass flight of more than a million.
Israel’s stated objective is to make its northern areas safe from Hezbollah rocket fire and allow thousands of displaced residents to return.
Israel’s military said on Tuesday it had deployed a fourth army division into south Lebanon, signalling an expanding ground offensive against Hezbollah, while the militant group’s deputy Qaim Nassem said Hezbollah supported attempts by Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, to secure a halt to fighting.
It was not clear whether Qassem’s remarks signalled any change in stance, after a year in which the group has said it is fighting in support of the Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and would not stop without a ceasefire there.
(with inputs from AFP and Reuters)
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