IDF says it confirmed Nasrallah’s presumed successor was killed in Oct. 4 strike
Hezbollah has yet to announce death of Hashem Safieddine, who was targeted in Beirut as he met with terror group’s intel chief and other top commanders
The IDF on Tuesday announced that top Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut earlier this month.
Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s executive council, was presumed to be the successor of Hassan Nasrallah following his assassination in late September.
According to the military, Safieddine was killed alongside the head of the Lebanese terror group’s intelligence division, Hussein Ali Hazima, during the strike on October 4.
The strike had targeted Hezbollah’s underground intelligence headquarters in Beirut, which the army says was “in the heart of a civilian population” in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburb, known as Dahiyeh.
The IDF says that more than 25 members of Hezbollah’s intelligence division were at the headquarters when the strike was carried out, including other top commanders.
Safieddine had been out of contact since the strike, but it was only on Tuesday that the IDF said it could confirm his death. Hezbollah has not yet announced his death.
“We reached [Hassan] Nasrallah, his replacement, and most of Hezbollah’s leadership. We will know how to reach anyone who threatens the security of Israel’s citizens,” IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said in remarks provided by the military.
Safieddine, whom the US State Department designated as a terrorist in 2017, was a cousin of Nasrallah and, like him, was a cleric who wore the black turban denoting ostensible descent from Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. Grey-bearded and bespectacled, Safieddine bore a striking resemblance to Nasrallah but was several years his junior, aged in his late 50s or early 60s.
A source close to Hezbollah told AFP in early October that the deeply religious cleric Safieddine, who had good relations with Hezbollah backer Iran, was the “most likely” candidate for the party’s top job.
Along with heading the executive council overseeing Hezbollah’s financial and administrative affairs, Safieddine was appointed to its Jihad Council — the body responsible for its military operations.
Safieddine assumed a prominent role in 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.”
On the day of that speech, Hezbollah-led forces began launching attacks on Israeli communities and military posts along the border that it has continued on a near-daily basis, with the Iran-backed organization saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
Some 60,000 residents were evacuated from northern towns on the Lebanon border shortly after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, amid fears Hezbollah would carry out a similar attack, and increasing rocket fire by the terror group.
The attacks on northern Israel since October 2023 have resulted in the deaths of 29 civilians. In addition, 45 IDF soldiers and reservists have died in cross-border skirmishes and in the ensuing ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September.
The IDF estimates that more than 1,500 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in the conflict. Around 100 members of other terror groups, along with hundreds of civilians, have also been reported killed in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has named 516 members who have been killed by Israel amid the fighting, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. These numbers have not been consistently updated since Israel began a new offensive against Hezbollah in September.
The IDF’s toll in the ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon and during operations on the border stands at 19.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.