Updated: 9:30am (AEDT)
Tel Aviv, Israel/Jerusalem/Cairo, Egypt
Reuters
Israel on Tuesday confirmed it had killed Hashem Safieddine, the heir apparent to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah who was previously killed in an Israeli attack last month on the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group.
The military said Safieddine was killed in a strike carried out three weeks ago in Beirut’s southern suburbs, its first confirmation of his death. Earlier this month, Israel said he had probably been eliminated.
There was no immediate response from Hezbollah to Israel’s statement that it had killed Safieddine.
Gil Haskel welcomes US Secretary of State Antony Blinken he arrives in Tel Aviv, Israel, on 22nd October, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters/Nathan Howard/Pool
Israel has been carrying out an escalating offensive after a year of border clashes with Hezbollah, which is reeling from a spate of killings of its senior commanders in Israeli airstrikes. The group is the most formidably armed of Iran’s proxy forces across the Middle East and has been acting in support of Palestinian militants fighting Israel in Gaza.
A relative of Nasrallah, Safieddine was appointed to its Jihad Council – the body responsible for its military operations – and to its executive council, overseeing Hezbollah’s financial and administrative affairs.
Safieddine assumed a prominent role speaking for Hezbollah during the last year of hostilities with Israel, addressing funerals and other events that Nasrallah had long been unable to attend for security reasons.
Israel has so far shown no sign of relenting in its Gaza and Lebanon campaigns even after assassinating several leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, which lost Nasrallah, its powerful secretary-general, in a 27th September airstrike.
Diplomats say Israel aims to lock in a strong position before a new US administration takes over following the 5th November election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
Blinken on Middle East 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 capitalise on the killing of Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar by securing the release of the 7th October attack hostages and ending the war in Gaza.
After repeated abortive attempts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Blinken was making his 11th trip to the Middle East since the Gaza war erupted – and the last before a presidential election that could upend US policy.
Blinken was also seeking ways to defuse the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, where overnight at least 18 people were killed, including four children, and 60 injured by an Israeli airstrike near Beirut’s main state hospital.
Blinken faced an uphill struggle on both fronts.
He spelled out US hopes that the death of Hamas leader Sinwar – blamed for triggering a year of devastating warfare by planning the deadly militant assault from Gaza on Israeli territory on 7th October last year – will provide a new opportunity for peace.
Smoke billows over Maroun El Ras, southern Lebanon, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from northern Israel, on 22nd October, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes
In a statement issued by his office, Netanyahu said Sinwar’s elimination “may have a positive effect on the return of the hostages, the achievement of all the goals 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’ military capabilities have been greatly degraded and Gaza largely reduced to rubble, with most of its 2.3 million Palestinians displaced.
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For its part, Hamas has refused to free scores of hostages in Gaza seized in its 7th October, 2023 raid on Israel without an Israeli pledge to end the war and pull out of the territory.
As Blinken huddled with Israeli leaders, Hezbollah ruled out negotiations while fighting continues with Israel, and it claimed responsibility for a drone attack targeting Netanyahu’s holiday home on Saturday.
Hezbollah announced dozens of attacks against Israeli targets on Tuesday, including what it said were Israeli military sites near Haifa and Tel Aviv, suggesting its capabilities have survived Israel’s biggest onslaught in decades of hostilities.
Israeli strikes also continued across Lebanon on Tuesday, including one of which caused the precipitous collapse of an multi-storey building near central Beirut, sending more panicked residents fleeing.
Israel’s offensive has driven at least 1.2 million Lebanese from their homes and killed 2,530 people, including at least 63 over the past 24 hours, the Lebanese government said on Tuesday.
– With reporting by LAILA BASSAM, MAYA GEBEILY and AMINA ISMAIL in Beirut, Lebanon; CLAUDA TANIOS and NAYERA ABDULLAH in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; JONATHAN SAUL in Jerusalem; SIMON LEWIS in Washington DC, US; and, THOMAS ESCRITT in Berlin, Germany.
