Israel confirms killing of Hashem Safieddine, presumed next leader of Hezbollah
Israel said on Tuesday a strike it carried out in Beirut three weeks ago killed Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor to late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was also killed in an Israeli attack last month.
Safieddine was the head of Hezbollah’s highest political decision-making body, the executive council, and was also a cousin of the former secretary general. And as William Christou, who is filing for the Guardian from Beirut writes, he was seen as having much of the same charisma that inspired the cult of personality around Nasrallah.
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, but he does not enjoy the same popularity among Hezbollah supporters that the late secretary general had.
It remains unknown who will take the helm as the next leader of the group. In a speech two weeks ago, Qassem said that appointing a new leader was a complex procedure and would take some time. Alongside blows to its political leadership, almost all of Hezbollah’s senior military cadre has been killed by Israel in the last three months.
Despite the losses in its command structure, Hezbollah has insisted that the group has retained its organisational strength. The group has said this is evidenced by what it says is Israel’s lack of progress in south Lebanon.
Key events
In a statement on its official Telegram channel, Israel’s military has claimed that overnight it struck at weapons storage facilities in Beirut in Lebanon.
In the message, the IDF said the targets were “manufacturing facilities and command centres belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization which were located within civilian infrastructure.”
It continued “This strike is part of the efforts to damage Hezbollah’s weapons storage and manufacturing facilities that are embedded beneath residential buildings in the heart of the city of Beirut, endangering the population in the area.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Lebanon’s government has said that over 2,000 people have been killed and more than 1.2 million people displaced by Israeli airstrikes on the country in recent weeks. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been forced to flee their homes in northern Israel after a year of sustained rocket fire from Hezbollah and other anti-Israeli forces in southern Lebanon aimed at Israel.
The Palestinian Wafa news agency is reporting that “at least eight civilians were killed and others were injured” in ongoing Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday morning.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Lufthansa has, according to Reuters, announced that it is extending the suspension of flights serving Beirut and Tehran until the end of February 2025.
Beirut’s international airport remains open, but Lebanese flag carrier Middle East Airlines is the only airline offering a significant number of departures.
Blinken: US fully rejects idea of permanent Israeli occupation of Gaza
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said the US fully rejects the idea of Israel permanently occupying Gaza, and said that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have an opportunity to turn its military campaign against Hamas into “an enduring strategic success”.
Speaking to reporters on his way from Tel Aviv to Riyadh on the next stage of his Middle East visit, Reuters reports Blinken urged Israel on Wednesday to use the opportunity created by its success in dismantling Hamas’ capacity in Gaza and the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to reach a longer term solution in the conflict.
It quoted him saying:
Now is the time to turn those successes into an enduring strategic success. And there are really two things left to do, get the hostages home and bring the war to an end with an understanding of what will follow.
Blinken said he believed that Israel had made progress in the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, but that more was needed, and the top US diplomat added that his country is working to get a clear understanding of what Israel plans for the governance of Gaza going forward. He said it was necessary for there to be concrete plans for the way ahead.
Blinken also said that Israel’s expected response to Iran’s 1 October missile attack on the country needed to be done in a way that did not create greater escalation. Earlier this week the FBI launched an investigation into the unauthorized release of classified documents describing Israel’s preparation for a potential retaliatory attack on Iran. Tehran said it launched its attack on 1 October in retaliation for a series of attacks against Iran and the militias it backs across the Middle East, including Hezbollah, and the assassination by Israel of Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut.
Reuters reports that a German government spokesperson has given a readout of a meeting between Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Qatar’s Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
The pair stressed the importance of a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and called for intensified diplomatic efforts to achieve a lasting peace in the region during talks in Germany on Tuesday, the spokesperson said.
Scholz thanks the Emir for his efforts in negotiating to release Israeli hostages held in Gaza by Hamas for over a year, and said that he hoped the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by Israel opened up chances for a ceasefire.
Members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government in Israel have repeatedly made clear that they are opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state and harbour an ambition to permanently annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Hamas has vowed to fight on after the death of Sinwar, who was considered to be behind the surprise 7 October attack inside southern Israel in 2023 which killed about 1,200 people and during which about 250 people were abducted and seized as hostages, many of whom were subsequently killed. About 100 hostages are believed to still be in Gaza, with Israeli authorities believing that not all of them are alive.
Lebanon’s National News Agency has reported an Israeli airstrike in Qana, stating that there were no casualties.
Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for rocket fire towards central Israel on Wednesday, claiming to have targeted an Israeli intelligence base north of Tel Aviv.
Israel’s military, in a statement on its official Telegram channel, has claimed to have killed another senior Hezbollah figure.
Naming Khalil Mohammad Amhaz as “a terrorist operative in Hezbollah’s Aerial Unit” the IDF claimed he was “a significant source of expertise for Hezbollah’s Aerial Unit, which is responsible for developing and launching explosive and intelligence-gathering UAVs into Israel.”
It said he had been killed in the Hermel area of Lebanon, which is in the north-east of the country.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Israel confirms killing of Hashem Safieddine, presumed next leader of Hezbollah
Israel said on Tuesday a strike it carried out in Beirut three weeks ago killed Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor to late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was also killed in an Israeli attack last month.
Safieddine was the head of Hezbollah’s highest political decision-making body, the executive council, and was also a cousin of the former secretary general. And as William Christou, who is filing for the Guardian from Beirut writes, he was seen as having much of the same charisma that inspired the cult of personality around Nasrallah.
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, but he does not enjoy the same popularity among Hezbollah supporters that the late secretary general had.
It remains unknown who will take the helm as the next leader of the group. In a speech two weeks ago, Qassem said that appointing a new leader was a complex procedure and would take some time. Alongside blows to its political leadership, almost all of Hezbollah’s senior military cadre has been killed by Israel in the last three months.
Despite the losses in its command structure, Hezbollah has insisted that the group has retained its organisational strength. The group has said this is evidenced by what it says is Israel’s lack of progress in south Lebanon.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Middle East conflict.
Israel said on Tuesday a strike it carried out in Beirut three weeks ago killed Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor to late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was also killed in an Israeli attack last month.
“We have reached Nasrallah, his replacement and most of Hezbollah’s senior leadership. We will reach anyone who threatens the security of the civilians of the State of Israel,” said Israeli army chief Lt Gen Herzi Halevi.
There was no immediate response from Hezbollah.
The confirmation of Safieddine’s death came as Antony Blinken was due to visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, a last-minute change from plans to head to Jordan attributed to scheduling issues.
In Tel Aviv on Tuesday, the US secretary of state pressed Israel’s leaders to work towards a ceasefire in Gaza, as fighting continued to rage in the territory’s aid-starved north and as Israeli strikes pounded Lebanon.
“I believe very much that the death of Sinwar does create an important opportunity to bring the hostages home, to bring the war to an end and to ensure Israel’s security,” Blinken said as he met Israeli president Isaac Herzog.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer told Blinken in their meeting that Israel is not implementing the so-called General’s Plan aimed at isolating and starving out northern Gaza. Blinken urged Netanyahu to clarify this publicly, but the prime minister demurred, according to a US official that briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.
“They said it’s absolutely not our policy,” the US official said, according to AFP, adding that the Israeli officials were told that they should “go to greater lengths to actually sort of say that publicly”.
In other developments:
-
Israel is weighing the use of private security contractors – possibly involving UK special forces veterans – to deliver aid to Gaza, as conditions in the north of the strip worsen dramatically, the Guardian has learned.
-
At least three Israeli strikes targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs Tuesday evening, according to Lebanon’s official ANI news agency. Two of the strikes hit the Laylake district, near a stadium. The strikes came shortly after Israel’s military issued new evacuation warnings for residents in specific buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
-
Lebanon’s health ministry on Tuesday revised upward the casualty toll from the Israeli strike near Beirut’s main government hospital on Monday to at least 18 people killed, including four children, and 60 wounded. Israeli jets hit a Hezbollah target close to the Rafik Hariri university hospital in Beirut but did not target the hospital and it was not affected by the strike, the Israeli military said on Tuesday.
-
At least 63 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon over the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 2,530, the Lebanese government said on Tuesday. It also said that more than 11,800 people had been wounded by Israeli strikes on Lebanon since October 2023.
-
Seven Palestinian civilians were killed during Israeli artillery bombardment of a school sheltering displaced people in northern Gaza on Tuesday, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency reported, citing local sources. Separately, at least three Palestinians were killed and several wounded by an Israeli drone strike targeting a group of people in western Gaza City, the Anadolu news agency said.
-
Palestinians under an Israeli siege in northern Gaza “are rapidly exhausting all available means for their survival”, the UN’s humanitarian office has warned. The UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) accused Israel of denying its requests to deliver life-saving aid to northern Gaza, as well as of denying requests to help rescue dozens of people trapped under their collapsed homes in the Falouja area of the Jabalia refugee camp in the north.
-
Lebanon will need $250m a month to help more than a million people displaced by Israeli attacks, its minister in charge of responding to the crisis said on Tuesday. Nasser Yassin told Reuters the government response, helped by local initiatives and international aid, only covered 20% of the needs of 1.3 million people.
-
Keir Starmer has accused Vladimir Putin of disrupting food supplies to Gaza after British intelligence suggested Russia had stepped up its attacks on Ukrainian ports. Starmer said it was clear the Russian president was “willing to gamble on global food security” after several grain ships en route to developing countries were damaged by Russian strikes, and are believed to have delayed a vessel carrying vegetable oil destined for the World Food Programme in Palestine.
-
The FBI is investigating the leak of a pair of highly classified intelligence documents describing Israel’s preparations for a retaliatory strike on Iran, the Washington Post reported. “The FBI is investigating the alleged leak of classified documents and working closely with our partners in the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community,” the FBI said in a statement.
