The Lebanese pro-Iranian movement suffers a new blow. The Israeli army confirmed Tuesday evening that it had “eliminated” Hachem Safieddine, Hassan Nasrallah’s expected successor at the head of Hezbollah, in a strike on Beirut in early October.
This announcement comes on the sidelines of a new visit to Israel by American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who considered that the elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinouar offered an “important opportunity” to end the war in Gaza.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah indicated that contact with Hachem Safieddine had been “lost” since Israeli strikes near Beirut on October 4. The Israeli army then said it believed it had eliminated him, but without formally confirming his disappearance.
Hezbollah has not confirmed the death of Hachem Safieddine at this stage.
Gray beard, glasses and black turban of the “sayyed” – the descendants of Mohammed – Hachem Safieddine, aged around sixty, bore a striking resemblance to his cousin Hassan Nasrallah, killed in an Israeli strike near Beirut on September 27 .
He was, according to a source close to Hezbollah, “the most likely candidate” to succeed him at the head of the Shiite movement financed and armed by Iran.
Its elimination further weakens this organization, already bled by several assassinations and against which Israel entered into open war a month ago, increasing the bombings in Lebanon.
On Tuesday evening, Israeli airstrikes again targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of the Lebanese Islamist movement largely deserted by its residents.
Humanitarian aid
The confirmation of Safieddine’s death comes a week after the elimination in the Gaza Strip, on October 16, of Yahya Sinouar, considered the mastermind of the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.
Visiting Israel for the eleventh time since the start of the conflict, Mr. Blinken said Tuesday that the death of the man who had become the leader of Hamas offered an “important opportunity to bring the hostages home” and to “end war” in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to his office, assured his interlocutor that Sinouar’s death “could have a positive effect on the return of hostages” held in Gaza.
Mr. Blinken also pressed Mr. Netanyahu to take “additional steps” to allow humanitarian aid, controlled by Israel, to “reach civilians throughout” the besieged Palestinian territory.
The head of American diplomacy, who will stop in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, also hopes to avoid a military escalation between Israel and Iran, a nation allied to Hamas and Hezbollah, after the Iranian missile attack on Israel on October 1.
On Monday, Washington affirmed that it was also working towards a settlement “as quickly as possible” of the conflict in Lebanon which would be based on the application of UN resolution 1701, providing that only UN peacekeepers and the army Lebanese troops are deployed in the south of the country.
In addition to its strikes, Israel has been carrying out a ground offensive in southern Lebanon since September 30 in order to neutralize Hezbollah there and allow the return of 60,000 inhabitants of northern Israel displaced by incessant rocket fire for a year.
Fund transfers
On Tuesday, Hezbollah claimed to have fired drones at a military base near Haifa in northern Israel and destroyed seven Israeli tanks on the border, where fighting raged.
Israel, for its part, has increased its strikes across Lebanon, killing at least ten people, according to the Lebanese authorities, in the east and south of the country, two Hezbollah strongholds.
On Sunday and Monday, the Israeli army extended its attacks to Hezbollah’s financial system by bombing offices of the microcredit company Al-Qard al-Hassan, linked to the Shiite movement.
The army announced Tuesday the death in Syria of a senior official responsible for “transfers of Hezbollah funds” and claimed to have targeted a group bunker containing “tens of millions of dollars”.
At least 1,552 people have been killed in Lebanon since the first massive Israeli strikes on September 23 against Hezbollah, according to an AFP count based on official data.
By mid-October, the UN had recorded nearly 700,000 displaced people in the country.
The attack carried out on October 7, 2023 by Hamas resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people in Israel, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data, including hostages killed or died in captivity.
Of the 251 people then kidnapped, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, 34 of whom were declared dead by the army.
At least 42,718 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in the Israeli retaliatory offensive in Gaza, according to data from the Hamas government’s Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
