Netanyahu: Israel killed ‘Nasrallah’s replacement, and his replacement’s replacement’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to confirm on Tuesday evening that Israel had successfully assassinated projected new Hezbollah leader Hashem Safieddine, who was targeted in an airstrike in Beirut last Thursday, and claimed Israel has also killed the next in line for the job.

In an English-language video message addressed to the Lebanese public, Netanyahu said that Israel has “degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities; we took out thousands of terrorists, including [longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah himself, and Nasrallah’s replacement, and his replacement’s replacement.”

“Today, Hezbollah is weaker than it has been in many, many years,” said the premier.

Netanyahu did not identify by name any of the successors he said had been killed, although Safieddine had been widely considered to be next in line for the position of secretary-general. Hezbollah has not publicly confirmed his death, and the IDF spokesman declined Tuesday evening to conclusively say that Safieddine had been killed.

“We struck Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut… this is the headquarters of the head of the intelligence division, Abu Abdullah Mortada,” IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in response to a question from a reporter at a press conference. “With him, we know that Hashem Safieddine was there. 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.”

Israel killed Nasrallah, who had led the terror group since 1992, in an airstrike on Beirut on September 27, sending shockwaves across the region. Late on October 3, Israel carried out a heavy bombing in Beirut said to target Safieddine, who was the head of the Hezbollah executive council, overseeing the group’s political affairs, and was presumed to be Nasrallah’s successor.

Safieddine, whom the US State Department designated as a terrorist in 2017, is a cousin of Nasrallah and, like him, is a cleric who wears the black turban denoting ostensible descent from Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. Safieddine assumed a prominent role speaking for Hezbollah during the past year, addressing funerals and other events that Nasrallah had long avoided for security reasons.

He was the first Hezbollah official to speak in public after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, telling a rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs on October 8, 2023, that the group’s “guns and our rockets are with you. Everything we have is with you.”

Hailing from a prominent Lebanese Shiite family, Safieddine was born in the country’s predominantly Shiite south. He studied at religious seminaries in the Iranian city of Qom before returning to Lebanon in the 1990s to assume leadership responsibilities in the group. His son, Rida, is married to the daughter of the late Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force until he was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020. His brother Abdullah serves as Hezbollah’s representative in Tehran.

The purported loss of Nasrallah’s rumored successor would be another blow to Hezbollah and its patron Iran, after Israeli strikes in the past few weeks have decimated the terror group’s leadership.

Earlier Tuesday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that Safieddine was likely killed in last week’s strike in Beirut.

“Hezbollah is an organization without a leader, Nasrallah was eliminated, his replacement was probably also eliminated,” said Gallant during a visit to the IDF Northern Command, adding that Hezbollah’s firepower capabilities have also taken a heavy blow.

“This has a dramatic effect on everything that happens. There is no one to make decisions, no one to act,” the defense minister added. “The actions we are taking are being observed all over the Middle East. When the smoke in Lebanon clears, they will realize in Iran that they have lost their most valuable asset, which is Hezbollah.”

‘Don’t let these terrorists destroy your future’

In his video message on Tuesday night, Netanyahu urged Lebanese citizens to take the country back from Hezbollah control.

“You, the Lebanese people, you stand at a significant crossroads. It is your choice,” he said. Lebanese citizens “can now take back your country. You can return it to a path of peace and prosperity.”

If not, Netanyahu added, “Hezbollah will continue to try to fight Israel from densely populated areas at your expense.”

The prime minister said the Lebanese people “deserve to restore Lebanon to its days of tranquility; you deserve a Lebanon that is different… Don’t let these terrorists destroy your future any more than they’ve already done.”

He said the people of Lebanon “have an 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. It doesn’t have to be that way… 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.”

Earlier Tuesday, Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem, one of the last surviving members of the group’s top leadership, claimed that “our capabilities are fine and our fighters are deployed along the frontlines.”

Qassem also claimed that Hezbollah supports efforts by Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, an ally of the group, to secure a ceasefire in the fighting, which has escalated in recent weeks.

According to a Channel 12 report on Tuesday citing unnamed sources in Beirut, Iran is pushing Hezbollah to seek out a ceasefire deal in order to “cut its losses” after a long list of top officials in the group have been killed in recent weeks.

Visiting Beirut on Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Tehran backs efforts for a ceasefire in Lebanon on the condition it would be backed by Hezbollah and be simultaneous with a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday that Qassem’s public backing of ceasefire efforts shows that Hezbollah is “on the back foot and is getting battered,” leading the group to “change their tune.”

A year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah escalated significantly last month, triggered by a coordinated explosion across Lebanon of pagers and walkie-talkies in an attack widely attributed to but not claimed by Israel.

Iranian television on Monday broadcast footage of Hezbollah members wounded in the pager attack visiting the Imam Reza shrine in Iran’s Mashhad, the world’s largest mosque.

The wounds suffered by the operatives in the attack were highlighted in the footage, with close-up shots of bandages covering what appear to be missing fingers and other injuries.

Source » timesofisrael.com