Israel has shifted the focus of its aggression from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed more than 700 people and displaced around 118,000 over the past few days.
Israeli military announced on Saturday that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed in a massive strike on Beirut the previous night.
“Hassan Nasrallah is dead,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani announced on X (formerly Twitter).
Captain David Avraham, another military spokesman, also confirmed to AFP that the Hezbollah chief had been “eliminated” following strikes on Friday on the Lebanese capital.
A source close to the Lebanese group meanwhile told AFP on condition of anonymity that contact with Nasrallah had been lost since Friday evening.
Contact with the group leader had been lost for two days and he had been rumoured killed during Israel’s last war with Hezbollah in 2006, the source said, adding that he later re-emerged unscathed.
Death of Zainab Nasrullah
Israeli media has also claimed that Zainab Nasrallah, the daughter of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, has been martyred in the latest attack on Lebanon.
A report by Israeli new channel claimed the martyrdom of Zainab Nasrallah in an Israeli attack on Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut but this news has not yet been confirmed by Hezbollah or the Lebanese authorities.
Zainab Hassan Nasrallah was recognized as a strong voice in Lebanon for supporting Hezbollah and for her family’s sacrifices.
In an interview to Al-Manar TV in 2022, while discussing the reaction of her parents to the martyrdom of her brother Hadi, Zainab Hassan Nasrallah said that not one tear fell from her parents’ eyes upon the martyrdom of her brother.
As per Israeli military statement, the strikes also killed Ali Karake, commander of Hezbollah’s southern front, and an unspecified number of other Hezbollah commanders.
Who will replace Nasrullah?
Adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, Ali Larijani has said that Hezbollah is ready to launch an alternative leadership movement if Nasrallah is dead.
Talking about other commander and leaders in line, Ali Larijani said that Israel has crossed the “red line”, the situation has become very serious.
In case of the martyrdom of the Hezbollah leader, alternative leadership is ready to run the movement, said Larijani in a recent presser.
On the other hand, the Iranian news agency Tasnim News Agency claimed that the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, was safe in the Israeli attack.
Thousands sleep on the streets as Israel strikes Beirut
Thousands of residents in Beirut’s densely-packed southern suburbs camped out overnight in streets, public squares and makeshift shelters after Israel ordered them out before its jets attacked the so-called Hezbollah stronghold.
“I expected the war to expand, but I thought it would be limited to (military) targets, not civilians, homes, and children,” said south Beirut resident Rihab Naseef, 56, who spent the night in a church yard.
AFP photographers saw families spend the night in the open, scenes unheard of in Lebanon’s capital since the Hezbollah and Israel last went to war in 2006.
“I didn’t even pack any clothes, I never thought we would leave like this and suddenly find ourselves on the streets,” Naseef said.
Israeli jets pounded Beirut’s south and its outskirts throughout the night, and Beirut woke up to the aftermath of a night at war, smoke billowing from blazes in several places.
‘What will happen?’
“I’m anxious and afraid of what may happen. I left my home without knowing where I’m going, what will happen to me, and whether I will return,” Naseef said.
Despite a night of intense strikes, the extent of the devastation and the casualty toll was still unclear early Saturday.
Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television broadcast footage from southern Beirut that showed flattened buildings, streets filled with rubble and clouds of smoke and dust above the area known as Dahiyeh.
