Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that Israeli airstrikes had killed two potential successors to Hezbollah’s slain leader, as Israel intensified its ground offensive against the Iran-backed group by deploying a fourth army division into southern Lebanon.
Netanyahu made this statement in a video released by his office, shortly after Hezbollah’s deputy leader, following a series of Israeli airstrikes targeting senior commanders, hinted at the possibility of negotiating a ceasefire.
“We’ve degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities. We took out thousands of terrorists, including (Hassan) Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement of the replacement,” Netanyahu said, without naming the latter two.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hashem Safieddine, the man expected to succeed Nasrallah, had probably been “eliminated”. It was not immediately clear whom Netanyahu meant by the “replacement of the replacement”.
Later, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari stated that Israel was aware Safieddine was at Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters when fighter jets targeted it last week. He added that Safieddine’s status was “being checked, and we will inform the public once we know.”
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Safieddine has not made any public appearances since that airstrike, which was part of an intensifying Israeli offensive following a year of border clashes with Hezbollah. The group is one of Iran’s most heavily armed proxy forces in the Middle East and has been supporting Palestinian militants fighting against Israel in Gaza.
On Tuesday, Israel’s military announced that heavy airstrikes targeting underground Hezbollah installations in southern Lebanon over the previous 24 hours resulted in the deaths of at least 50 fighters, including six sector commanders and regional officials.
The regional tensions, which were ignited a year ago by an attack from the Palestinian armed group Hamas on southern Israel, have escalated in recent weeks, drawing Lebanon into the conflict.
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