After the killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, Hashim Safi al-Din was considered his most promising successor. He was loyal to Iran and had sworn “bloody revenge” on Israel until the end.
Israel’s military says it has killed senior Hezbollah official Hashim Safi al-Din in Lebanon. The Israeli military announced on Platform In addition, the commander of Hezbollah’s secret service was also killed. Ali Hussein Hasima was responsible for directing numerous attacks on Israeli soldiers, it said.
The pro-Iranian Shiite militia did not initially confirm the deaths of the two men. Safi al-Din was killed in an attack on the Hezbollah intelligence headquarters in a Beirut suburb, according to the Israeli military. He was a member of the so-called Shura Council, Hezbollah’s highest-ranking military-political body. This is responsible for the decision-making and political shaping of the terrorist organization.
As head of the Executive Council, Safi al-Din has long been one of the most important figures within the Hezbollah leadership. He was cousin of the late Nasrallah on his mother’s side and, according to the newspaper “Asharq al-Awsat”, father of the son-in-law of the powerful Iranian general Ghassem Soleimani, who was killed in Iraq in 2020 by a US drone strike. During the periods when Nasrallah was not in Lebanon, Safi al-Din took over the role of Hezbollah’s secretary general, the Israeli military said. He directed terrorist attacks against Israel.
Safi al-Din was around 60 years old – his exact age is not known – and came from the town of Deir Kanun al-Nahr in southern Lebanon. He is said to have been trained in Iran in the 1980s. In 2008, he became head of the Executive Council, which guides Hezbollah in political, organizational and social areas.
In contrast to the slain leader Nasrallah, who lived in seclusion and whose whereabouts were kept secret, Safi al-Din appeared publicly at Hezbollah events until the very end. In mid-June he spoke at the funeral of a Hezbollah commander. After the explosion of thousands of Hezbollah’s communications devices around two weeks ago, he threatened Israel with a “bloody, unique revenge” in a speech.
Apart from Nasrallah, Israel’s military has so far primarily killed military commanders, but not members of the upper political ranks within the organization. In 1992, Israel also killed then-leader Abbas al-Mussawi, who was succeeded by Nasrallah.
The United States, along with Saudi Arabia, declared Safi al-Din a terrorist in 2017. They hold him responsible, among other things, for a devastating suicide attack on the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut in 1983, in which 241 US soldiers were killed. In a rewritten version he is also known by the surname Safieddine.
The militia may have suffered its worst blows in decades, but it is likely to continue the conflict with Israel – albeit weakened. Last year, Safi al-Din said: “It may take one war, two wars, three wars” and require “multiple confrontations,” but ultimately Israel must be destroyed and “come to an end.”
