Hezbollah is ‘broken’ as Israeli PM confirms new chief is killed

Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Hassan Nasrallah and his presumed successor as leader, was believed to be dead.

Israeli troops operating in southern Lebanon this week. Picture: IDF via AFP

The Israeli Prime Minister claimed overnight on Tuesday to have confirmation of the death of Hezbollah’s presumed new leader, as he ordered more troops into southern Lebanon.

Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Hassan Nasrallah and his presumed successor as leader, was believed to be dead. He had not been heard from since an Israeli missile struck a building where he was believed to be meeting other Hezbollah leaders last Thursday.

“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 address calling on Lebanon to throw out the militant group. It is not clear whom he meant by the replacement’s replacement.

In a televised address “to the people of Lebanon”, Mr Netanyahu spoke about the possibility of a long war. “You have the opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza,” he said.

Israel has inflicted a heavy and unexpected series of blows on Hezbollah in the past month, first injuring thousands of operatives with exploding pagers and walkie talkies, and then killing most of its senior leadership, including Nasrallah, in two airstrikes.

Mr Netanyahu said the group was now “weaker than it has been in many, many years”.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called Hezbollah a “battered and broken organisation, without significant command and fire capabilities”.

There has also been no sign since Thursday of Esmail Ghaani, the head of the Iranian Quds Force, the overseas arm of the Revolutionary Guard. Israel has not said that he was also an intended target but there has been increasing speculation that he was attending the same meeting as ­ Safieddine.

He has acted as the main liaison between Iran and all the local militia forces that it backs across the Arab world, including Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Israel Defence Forces also said they had killed Suheil Hussein Husseini, who ran Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut, in a strike on the city.

Israel also announced it was sending a fourth army division, the 148th, across the frontier into southwest Lebanon, opening a new offensive along the coastline. Videos taken inside the country suggested the IDF had also finally captured the village of Maroun al-Ras, where they had faced fierce resistance since invading the country last week.

The 148th division joins three others made up of some of Israel’s elite units, including the Egoz commandos, part of the 98th brigade. Several armoured brigades are also fighting inside Lebanon, despite repeated pledges that the ground incursion would be “limited and localised”.

On Monday alone, the air force hit the country 120 times as it tried to destroy Hezbollah’s arsenal.

Hezbollah’s last leader standing pledged defiance despite the loss of so much of its top command. Naim Qassem, who was the deputy to Nasrallah for more than 30 years, claimed that the organisation’s military capabilities were “intact” and were resisting invading Israeli forces. “We are striking them,” he said in a televised address. “We are hurting them. Dozens of cities are within range of the resistance’s missiles. We assure you that our capabilities are fine.”

Displaced Palestinian ferry water from a distribution point in the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City this week. Picture: AFP

However, he did say he supported attempts by Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, to negotiate an end to fighting. “We support the political activity being led by Berri under the title of a ceasefire,” he said, not insisting that it would depend also on an end to hostilities in Gaza.

Hezbollah was able to launch scores of missiles at Haifa, the northern Israeli coastal city, during the course of the day. No serious damage was reported, and just one injury, but the Israeli authorities closed schools in response. A further 25 rockets were aimed at the town of Kiryat Shemona, near the border.

Hamas has also insisted that it will fight on, despite the loss of much of its own leadership, thousands of fighters and civilians killed, and the devastation of most of Gaza. Hamas had suffered tactical losses but Israel had suffered strategic losses, Khaled Meshaal, its most senior remaining political leader, said in a TV interview.

“We go through phases where we lose martyrs and we lose part of our military capabilities, but then the Palestinian spirit rises again, like the phoenix, thanks to God,” he said in a separate interview with Reuters news agency.

Israel is starting new ground operations in the north of Gaza, being forced to clear territory it has previously seized as Hamas fighters continue to stage attacks from their tunnel network. In the case of Hezbollah, it has decided that it can exploit the weakness created by its killings of almost the entire leadership of the group to reduce or obliterate its long-term military threat. It is weighing up the extent to which it will try the same strategy with Iran, which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah.

THE TIMES