Israel confirms killing of Nasrallah’s heir apparent, Hashem Safieddine

The Israeli military has confirmed that it has killed Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in an air strike on southern Beirut’s Dahieh suburb earlier this month. Nasrallah was assassinated last month in an Israeli air strike on a residential neighbourhood.

In a statement yesterday, the occupation army revealed that the strike also claimed the life of Ali Hussein Hazima, who headed the movement’s intelligence branch. The attack on 3 October targeted an underground bunker where Safieddine was reportedly staying.

Born in 1964 in southern Lebanon, Safieddine was a founding member of Hezbollah and headed its highest political decision-making body, the executive council. He had spent considerable time in the Iranian religious city of Qom and managed Hezbollah’s extensive business interests.

The strike that killed Safieddine reportedly also killed 25 other senior Hezbollah figures, according to Israeli military sources. Hezbollah has yet to comment on Israel’s claim.

Israel’s military offensive in Lebanon has led to the displacement of over a million people, with entire villages being bombed, including Christian communities, raising concerns about the potential for sectarian conflict in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Lebanon of “destruction and suffering” comparable with that experienced by Palestinians in Gaza if the Lebanese people do not “free” themselves from Hezbollah.

Christian communities, however, have not turned against fellow citizens from the Lebanese Shia community as Netanyahu hoped. Instead, churches have opened their doors to displaced communities seeking refuge from the devastating Israeli assault which has killed more than 2,500 people and wounded at least 11,850.

There is growing fear that Israel’s aim in Lebanon is to execute what analysts have called the “Gaza Doctrine”. While the use of disproportionate force has been a key feature of Israel’s war strategy ever since its creation in Palestine in 1948, the level of destruction seen in Gaza is unprecedented. Hospitals, schools, universities, refugee shelters and other civilian infrastructure have been systematically destroyed in what is thought to be a war of annihilation fuelled by genocidal intent.

Just as in Gaza, where Israel pre-justified the targeting of hospitals by claiming that they were being used by Hamas, the occupation state has accused Hezbollah of keeping hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold in a bunker under a hospital in the southern suburbs of Beirut. The Sahel hospital in Dahieh was evacuated shortly afterwards. Fadi Alame, its director, told Reuters that the allegations were untrue. Western journalists invited to visit the hospitals have found no evidence for the Israeli claim.

READ: UN rights chief appalled by Israeli attack on Beirut hospital