Oct. 23 (UPI) — Israel declared it killed Hashem Safieddine, the presumed new leader of Hezbollah, in an airstrike on Beirut early this month.
Safieddine, head of the Hezbollah Executive Council, was believed to be next in line to lead the Iran-proxy militia following Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on the Lebanese capital on Sept. 27.
Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Tuesday that Safieddine was killed during an airstrike on Hezbollah’s main intelligence headquarters in Dahieh, a Beirut suburb, on Oct. 5 — the same day it was reported that Safieddine had gone missing.
The Oct. 5 strike targeted a bunker where Hezbollah’s intelligence leadership was believed to have been located.
The IDF said Tuesday that more than 25 Hezbollah members were in the bunker when it was attacked.
The Israeli military noted that Safieddine was a cousin of Nasrallah, and because of his family connections, “he greatly influenced decision-making in the organization.”
When Nasrallah was outside of Lebanon, Safieddine served as Hezbollah’s secretary general, the IDF said.
“The IDF will continue to target Hezbollah officials and terrorists and anyone who poses a threat to the State of Israel and its citizens,” it said.
Safieddine was designated as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2017.
Israel has been hammering Lebanon since Sept. 23 as it seeks to eliminate the threat posed to it by the Iran-backed organization.
Israel has long been engaged in a proxy war with Iran, but it exploded into the open on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas, another Iran-proxy militia, killed 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped another 251 in a bloody surprise attack.
Emboldened by that strike, Hezbollah has been engaging Israel in cross-border strikes. But having decimated Hamas in Gaza over the preceding months, Israel has since turned its focus to eliminated Hezbollah.
Israel has killed a number of high-ranking Hezbollah militants in its strikes and earlier this week, it attacked branches of a bank in Lebanon accused of holding billions of dollars used to fund its destabilizing activities.
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, more than 2,500 people have been killed in the war, though the majority died since late September.