Hezbollah successor Hashem Safieddine ‘killed’, says Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu

The likely successor of Hassan Nasrallah, the assassinated leader of terrorist group Hezbollah, is thought to have been killed by the IDF in an airstrike last week.

Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, in Beirut in August, has reportedly been killed in an Israeli airstrike last week. Picture: AFP

The likely successor of Hassan Nasrallah, the assassinated leader of terrorist group Hezbollah, is said to have been killed by the IDF in an airstrike last week.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the assassination of senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine in an address ‘to the people of Lebanon’ on Tuesday evening.

“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,” Mr Netanyahu said in an English-language video published online.

“Today, Hezbollah is weaker than it has been for many many years,” he said.

However the Israeli Defence Forces have said they still don’t know if Safieddine is dead, directly contradicting the PM.

IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters the military was still investigating the results of the strike on a Beirut building in Hezbollah’s stronghold of Dahiyeh.

“We struck Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut… this is the headquarters of the head of the intelligence division, Abu Abdullah Mortada. We know that Hashem Safieddine was there with him. The results of this strike are still being looked into, Hezbollah is trying to hide the details. When we know, we will update the public,” Rear Admiral Hagari said.

Safieddine was the target of the strikes in Beirut last Thursday as he was reportedly set to succeed Nasrallah as head of the Lebanese militant group.

He is the cousin of eliminated Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, who was killed by Israeli bombs on September 27, and is head of the Hezbollah’s executive council. The US listed him as a terrorist in 2017.

In his three and a half minute speech, Mr Netanyahu said that a ‘gang of tyrants and terrorists’ had destroyed Lebanon, which he said had once been known ‘for its tolerance, for its beauty’.

“Today, it’s a place of chaos, a place of war,” he said.

“But the country that actually conquered Lebanon is not Israel. It’s Iran. Iran, which finances and arms Hezbollah to serve Iran’s interests at Lebanon’s expense.

“Hezbollah has turned Lebanon into a stockpile of ammunition weapons and a forward Iranian military base,” he said.

Since October 8 last year, Iran-backed Hezbollah has fired over 8000 rockets from Lebanon into Israel in a sign of solidarity with Hamas.

“You can now take back your country. You can return it to a path of peace and prosperity,” he said.

“If you don’t, Hezbollah will continue to try to fight Israel from densely populated areas at your expense.”

Signing off his speech, he pleaded to the Lebanese to free their country from Hezbollah.

“Free your country from Hezbollah so that your country can prosper again, so that future generations of Lebanese and Israeli children will know neither war nor bloodshed, but will finally live together in peace.”

It comes after Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday Safieddine had “probably” been eliminated in the strike on Beirut.

“Hezbollah is an organisation without a leader, Nasrallah was eliminated, his replacement was probably also eliminated, this thing has a dramatic effect on everything that happens,” Mr Gallant said on Tuesday afternoon.

“There is no one to make decisions, no one to act,” he said during a visit to the IDF Northern Command.

“The actions we are taking are observed all over the Middle East, when the smoke in Lebanon clears, in Iran they will realise that they have lost their most valuable asset, which is Hezbollah.”