Hashem Saffieddine: Israel confirmed the death of Hashem Saffieddine, a candidate to succeed Hezbollah chief Nasrallah. international

Israeli officials confirmed Tuesday night that Hashem Saffieddin, chairman of Hezbollah’s advisory council, was killed in a bomb they carried out in Beirut three weeks ago. Saffieddin was also considered a possible successor to the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, of whom he was a cousin. Saffieddine, whose death has not been confirmed by his co-religionists, “had great influence on the party’s decision-making process on various issues” and was the one who replaced the leader during his absence from Lebanon, after being deposed by the military. They also accused him of directing “terrorist acts against Israel,” according to a statement released.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has assured that it will continue to pursue top officials of the Shia group and anyone who harms the state or its citizens. Over the past two days they have claimed to have killed three other commanders of the group and about 70 militia members in southern Lebanon, where troops have been waging a ground offensive for nearly a month. At the same time, the military continues to issue forced evacuation orders to populations from areas they consider combatant. This Wednesday it touched some areas of the city of Tyre, on the Mediterranean coast and about twenty kilometers from the border, whose residents are demanded to move north.

The heavy pressure on the militia does not prevent it from harassing Israel on a daily basis. Alarm was raised in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning, when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in the city on his eleventh visit to the region since the war began. Before it continued its journey towards Saudi Arabia, local anti-aircraft defenses shot down two missiles launched from Lebanese territory.

Along with Hashem Saffieddin, Ali Hussein Hazma, one of the Shia party-militia’s senior intelligence officers, and other members of the group were also killed in the attack on the night of October 3 to 4, according to an Israeli military statement. , The planes attacked an underground barracks located in the suburb of Dahiye, a bastion of formation south of the Lebanese capital and one of the main objectives of the current Israeli military offensive launched from the ground and air over the past month. It is in the same neighborhood where a similar attack on Friday, September 27, killed Nasrallah, the historical leader of a militia born in 1982 and which is directly supported by Iran.

This is not the first time that Israel has taken a few weeks to confirm that it has managed to eliminate one of its most important enemies. Unlike Hamas leader Yahia Sinwar, who was killed by the army in Gaza last week and whose body was transferred to Israel, attacks from the air with bombs weighing hundreds of kilograms that also hit security shelters dug underground. They provide secrets, sometimes preventing us from knowing who it is they have killed. The same was the case of Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas’s military branch in the Strip, whose death in a bombing in early July was not announced until August 1, although Hamas has not confirmed it, as is the case with Sinwar. .