Israel says top Hezbollah official was killed in Beirut airstrike earlier this month

[Lucy Blair]

The Israeli military said Tuesday that a top Hezbollah official who had been widely expected to be the group’s next leader was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Beirut in early October.

There was no immediate confirmation from the militant group about the fate of Hashem Safieddine, a powerful cleric who was expected to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, one of the group’s founders.

Safieddine was killed in an Israeli airstrike in early October in a strike that also killed 25 other Hezbollah leaders, according to Israel, whose airstrikes in southern Lebanon in recent months have killed many of Hezbollah’s top leaders, leaving the group in disarray.

Last week, Israel killed the top leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, during a battle in Gaza.

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People react as smoke rises from a building that was hit by an Israeli missile in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday. (Bilal Hussein/The Associated Press)

Renewed airstrikes in Beirut suburb

The Beirut suburb where Safieddine was killed was pummelled by a series of fresh airstrikes on Tuesday, including one that levelled a building in the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut that it said housed Hezbollah facilities.

The collapse sent smoke and debris into the air a few hundred metres from where a spokesperson for the militant group had just briefed journalists about a weekend drone attack that damaged the Israeli prime minister’s house.

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A wounded man pauses in the rubble of destroyed buildings at the site of Israeli airstrikes in southern Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday. (Hussein Malla/The Associated Press)

The airstrike came 40 minutes after Israel issued an evacuation warning for two buildings in the area that it said were used by Hezbollah. The Hezbollah news conference nearby was cut short, and an Associated Press photographer captured an image of a missile heading toward the building moments before it was destroyed.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Hezbollah’s chief spokesperson, Mohammed Afif, said the group was behind the Saturday drone attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in the coastal town of Caesarea. He hinted that it might attempt future strikes on Netanyahu’s home. Israel has said neither the prime minister nor his wife were home at the time of the attack.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Tuesday with Netanyahu as part of his 11th visit to the region since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. Blinken is trying to revive efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.

Blinken stressed the need for Israel to do more to help increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians, and said Israel should “capitalize” on Sinwar’s death as an opportunity to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of hostages there. Netanyahu’s office called his meeting with Blinken, which lasted more than two hours, “friendly and productive.”

Blinken landed hours after Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets into central Israel, setting off air raid sirens in populated areas and at its international airport, but causing no apparent damage or injuries.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Tuesday with Netanyahu as part of his 11th visit to the region since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. After Israel’s killing last week of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Blinken is trying to revive efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza. Israeli military forces besieged hospitals and shelters for displaced people in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday. The Israeli military levelled a building in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday.

Lebanon hospitals fear being targeted

An Israeli airstrike late Monday in Beirut destroyed several buildings across the street from the country’s largest public hospital, killing 18 people and wounding at least 60 others, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah target, without elaborating, and said it had not targeted the hospital itself.

Associated Press reporters visited the Rafik Hariri University Hospital on Tuesday. They saw broken windows in the hospital’s pharmacy and dialysis centre, which was full of patients at the time.

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, is welcomed by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, left, and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Deputy Director General for North America Lior Hayat in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. (Nathan Howard/Pool/The Associated Press)

Staff at another Beirut hospital feared it would be targeted after Israel alleged that Hezbollah had stashed hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold in its basement, without providing evidence.

The director of the Sahel General Hospital denied the allegations and invited journalists to visit the hospital and its two underground floors on Tuesday. AP reporters saw no sign of militants.

The few remaining patients had been evacuated after the Israeli military’s announcement the night before. The rest had left earlier because of repeated airstrikes in the surrounding neighbourhood.

“We have been living in terror for the last 24 hours,” said hospital director Mazen Alame. “There is nothing under the hospital.”

Many in Lebanon fear Israel could target its hospitals in the same way it has raided medical facilities across Gaza. The Israeli military has accused Hamas and other militants of using hospitals for military purposes, allegations denied by medical staff.

Hospitals can lose their protection under international law if they are used for military purposes.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that 63 people have been killed over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,546. Three Israeli soldiers were killed on Tuesday, one in Gaza, one in Lebanon, and one in a rocket attack in northern Israel, according to the military.

WATCH | Crews comb through rubble in Beirut: 

Crews comb through rubble in Beirut suburb after airstrike

Heavy machines kicked up clouds of dust on Tuesday as teams searched through rubble following Israeli airstrikes on a southern suburb of Beirut, which one local official said left 10 dead.

Blinken trying to restart Gaza ceasefire efforts

During his meeting with Netanyahu, Blinken underscored the need for a dramatic increase in the amount of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza, according to U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. The need for more aid in Gaza is something Blinken and U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin made clear in a recent letter to Israeli officials.

Miller said Blinken also stressed the importance of ending the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated earlier this month when Israel launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

The State Department said ahead of Blinken’s visit that he would focus on ending the war in Gaza, securing the release of hostages held by Hamas and alleviating the suffering of Palestinian civilians.

The United States, Egypt and Qatar have brokered months of talks between Israel and Hamas, trying to strike a deal in which the militants would release dozens of hostages in return for an end to the war, a lasting cease-fire and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

But both Israel and Hamas accused each other of making new  and unacceptable demands over the summer, and the talks ground to a halt in August. Hamas says its demands haven’t changed following the killing of Sinwar.

Israel said it launched its ground invasion of Lebanon to try to stop near daily rocket attacks from Hezbollah since the start of the war in Gaza. Israel has said it plans to strike Iran — which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah — in response to its ballistic missile attack on Israel earlier this month.

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