According to Israeli sources, Hezbollah is leaderless. Nasrallah’s successor Safi al-Din is also presumably dead. All developments in the news blog.
3:44 p.m: The most promising candidate to succeed slain Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, Hashim Safi al-Din, is also believed to be dead, according to the Israeli Defense Minister. “Hezbollah is a headless organization – Nasrallah has been eliminated and his successor has probably also been eliminated.” said Joav Galant, according to his office. The minister did not mention Safi al-Din, the head of the Hezbollah Executive Council, by name.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video address released on Tuesday evening that Israel had eliminated “thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah’s successor and his successor’s successor.” He also did not mention Safi al-Din’s name.
Defense Minister Galant said that there is no longer anyone in the Lebanese Shiite militia who makes decisions. Hezbollah’s offensive capabilities have also suffered serious setbacks. When the smoke clears in Lebanon, Iran will realize that it has lost its greatest asset, said Galant, referring to the pro-Iranian militia. The news channel Al-Jazeera reported a few days ago that Hezbollah had lost contact with Safi al-Din. Hezbollah dismissed the reports as false. Nasrallah was recently killed in a large-scale Israeli airstrike south of Beirut.
2:53 p.m.: Because of the escalating situation in the Middle East, Great Britain has taken the relatives of its embassy staff in Israel out of the country as a precaution. This is a temporary measure, according to the British Foreign Office’s updated travel advice for Israel. “Our employees remain on site.”
Relatives of sent German diplomats have also left the region, as the Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry of Defense announced at the end of September. “The embassies remain operational, but family members of the posted employees and of German intermediary organizations as well as personnel who are not urgently needed are flying out,” it said at the time. This would “in no way restrict the embassies’ and representations’ ability to work and act.”
1:43 p.m: According to its Foreign Ministry, Turkey plans to send two navy ships to Beirut this Tuesday for evacuations from Lebanon. Turkish nationals who have applied to leave Lebanon by sea will be admitted on Wednesday. If necessary, evacuations would continue in the following days. There is space for a total of 2,000 passengers on the ships.
1:03 p.m.: A woman was slightly injured when at least one rocket from Lebanon hit Israel’s third largest city, Haifa. She suffered a splinter wound on her hand, said the Magen David Adom rescue service on the X platform. The Israeli army says a total of 105 rockets were registered, which were aimed at targets in the Galilee and especially in Haifa. Most of the bullets were intercepted, but some also landed in suburbs.
The Times of Israel newspaper speaks of the largest rocket attack on the city of Haifa since Hezbollah began shelling northern Israel a year ago. Videos published by the newspaper show damage to houses and cars in the northern suburb of Kiriat Jam.
12:59 p.m.: According to its deputy chief, the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah is open to a ceasefire with Israel. In a televised speech, the deputy head of the Islamists, Naim Kassim, said he supported a corresponding initiative by the speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri. “If the enemy continues his war, the field will decide,” Kassim threatens at the same time. You won’t beg for a solution. “We will continue, we will make sacrifices,” he says.
