A Lebanese security source stated on Saturday that the presumed heir of assassinated Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has not been in communication since Friday due to an alleged Israeli bombing that affected him.
Israel launched a massive assault on Beirut’s southern suburbs late on Thursday as part of the operation against the Lebanese organization. According to three Israeli sources, the strike was directed towards Hashem Safieddine in an underground bunker. According to the Lebanese security source, rescue personnel have been prevented from searching the bombing site by continuous Israeli attacks on Dahiyeh, a suburb of Beirut, since Friday. Since the incident, Hezbollah has not yet commented on Safieddine.
Hezbollah’s intelligence center was the target of attacks on Thursday night, according to Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, who stated on Friday that the IDF was still evaluating the situation. Hezbollah would suffer yet another setback with the passing of Nasrallah’s presumed successor. Hezbollah’s leadership has been completely destroyed by Israeli attacks around the region over the past year, which have recently picked up a lot of speed.
Following additional bombs hitting Beirut neighborhoods and Israeli forces conducting incursions in the south, Israel escalated its battle in Lebanon on Saturday by launching its first attack in the northern city of Tripoli, according to a Lebanese security official.
Israel’s Increasing Pressure on Hezbollah
After fighting Hezbollah for almost a year, Israel has launched a heavy bombing operation in Lebanon and sent soldiers across the border in recent weeks. Prior until this, the most of the fighting had taken place along Israel’s one-year-old conflict in Gaza against the Palestinian organization Hamas, along the border between the two countries.
After being under siege by Hezbollah since October 8 of last year, Israel claims to want to enable the safe return of tens of thousands of its residents to their homes in northern Israel. A large portion of Hezbollah’s senior military leadership has been destroyed by Israeli strikes, notably the air raid on September 27 that killed Secretary General Nasrallah.
According to Lebanese sources, the Israeli attack has also killed hundreds of common Lebanese citizens, including rescue workers, and driven 1.2 million people—nearly a quarter of the country’s population—to from their homes.
A Hamas member, his wife, and their two children were murdered in Saturday’s attack on a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli. A head of the Palestinian group’s armed branch was also said to have died in the strike by media connected to it. The attack on Tripoli, a port city with a majority of Sunni Muslims that Israeli airplanes had bombed during a 2006 conflict with Hezbollah, elicited no immediate response from the Israeli military.
In the meantime, Israel has launched regular bombardments of Dahiyeh, which was formerly a thriving, heavily inhabited neighborhood of Beirut and a Hezbollah stronghold. Smoke spiraled over Dahiyeh on Saturday; a great deal of the neighborhood has been turned to ruins, forcing inhabitants to evacuate to other areas of Beirut or Lebanon.
