Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on Tuesday that Hezbollah’s intended replacement of former leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed last month, has been eliminated as well.
“Today, Hezbollah is weaker than it has been for many, many years,” Netanyahu said in a message tailored directly to the “people of Lebanon.”
“We’ve degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities, we took out thousands of terrorists, including [former Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah himself, and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement of his replacement.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Hashem Safieddine, a relative of Nasrallah who was about to officially replace him, likely died in an airstrike on his Beirut base on Thursday.
Nasrallah had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on September 27th.
“Hezbollah is an organization without a head,” Gallant said in a statement. “Nasrallah was eliminated, his replacement was probably also eliminated.
“There’s no one to make decisions, no one to act,” Gallant added.
Meanwhile, Safieddine, a top military executive for the terrorist group, was expected to be formally elected as Hezbollah’s new secretary general after Nasrallah’s assassination.
However, Hezbollah has yet to comment on Safieddine’s status, as the terrorist group complained that Israel was allegedly obstructing search-and-rescue efforts for him on Sunday.
As a result, Naim Qassem, the group’s deputy secretary general, said Tuesday that Hezbollah is still scheduled to elect a new chief in the coming days.
If Safieddine was eliminated, he would join over a dozen top Hezbollah officials killed by Israel in recent weeks as the Jewish State continues its attacks against the terrorist organization.
The Israeli military also announced that it killed over 200 Hezbollah members during last week’s conducted raids, with multiple tunnel and rocket-launching facilities destroyed along the border.
IDF officials and Netanyahu said that the operations would continue in Lebanon until they determined that Hezbollah no longer posed a threat to northern Israel, where tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
