Israel says it has killed Nasrallah successor
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on October 8th that two successors to slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had ben killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to the Arab News via Reuters. Netanyahu was speaking in a video released by his office just hours after Hezbollah’s leader kept the door open for a negotiated ceasefire to end the conflict.
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“We’ve degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities. We took out thousands of terrorists, including (Hassan) Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement of the replacement,” Netanyahu said, without naming who the two replacements were. Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hashem Safieddine, widely expected to take over from Nasrallah, had probably been “eliminated.” It was not clear whom Netanyahu was referring to when he said the “replacement of the replacement.”
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Daniel Hagari, Israel’s military spokesperson, said later that his country knew Safieddine was in Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters when it was bombed last week and Safieddine’s status was “being checked and when we know, we will inform the public.” Safieddine has not been heard from since the strike.
Israel also claims to have killed 50 Hezbollah fighters including six sector commanders and regional officials over the last 24 hours following strikes in southern Lebanon.
Reuters