“Nasrallah’s successor eliminated”. Hard blow for Hezbollah –

After a series of investigations which required very delicate (and extremely dangerous) field investigations «it is now possible to confirm that, in a bombing approximately three weeks ago, Hachem Safieddine, head of the executive council of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, and Hussein Ali Al -Zeima, head of Hezbollah’s intelligence office, were eliminated in the southern outskirts of Beirut, together with other Hezbollah commanders.” This is what was communicated yesterday evening on the Israeli army’s Telegram channel. Safieddine’s death marks a hard blow – yet another – for the Shiite organization, as he was considered the “natural” successor of Nasrallah after the latter’s elimination at the end of September.

It is now clear: Safieddine was actually killed (together, as mentioned, with the head of the intelligence division of the Lebanese terrorist group), during the October 4 attack in the southern outskirts of Beirut. The next day, a Hezbollah official said contact with the senior leader had been “lost” but the pro-Iranian paramilitary movement never confirmed his death. The October 4 attack targeted Hezbollah’s underground intelligence headquarters in Beirut, which the army said was “in the heart” of a densely populated civilian area on the southern outskirts of the Lebanese capital, known as Dahiyeh. Tel Aviv says more than 25 members of Hezbollah’s intelligence division were at the headquarters when the raid was carried out, including other high-ranking commanders.

“We had Nasrallah, his replacement and most of Hezbollah’s senior leaders in our sights,” General Herzi Halevi, chief of staff of the Israeli army, said after the death of the leader of the Shiite organization was confirmed. “We will strike anyone who threatens the security of the citizens of the State of Israel,” he added. Safieddine, who the US State Department designated a terrorist in 2017, was a cousin of Nasrallah and, like him, a cleric who wore the black turban denoting apparent descent from Islam’s prophet Muhammad. With a gray beard and glasses, Safieddine looked strikingly like Nasrallah, but was several years younger, aged between 50 and 60.