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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday Israeli air strikes had killed two successors to Hizbollah’s slain leader, as Israel expanded its ground offensive against the Iran-backed group with a fourth army division deployed into south Lebanon.
Netanyahu spoke in a video released by his office hours after the deputy leader of Hizbollah, which is reeling after a spate of killings of senior commanders in Israeli air strikes, left the door open to a negotiated ceasefire.
“We’ve degraded Hizbollah’s capabilities. We took out thousands, 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 said Israel knew Safieddine was in Hizbollah’s intelligence headquarters when fighter jets bombed it last week and Safieddine’s status was “being checked and when we know, we will inform the public.”
Safieddine has not been heard from publicly since that air strike, part of an escalating Israeli offensive after a year of border clashes with Hizbollah. The group is the most formidably armed of Iran’s proxy forces across the Middle East and has been acting in support of Palestinians fighting Israel in Gaza.
“Today, Hizbollah is weaker than it has been for many, many years,” Netanyahu said.
Israel’s military said yesterday that heavy air strikes against underground Hizbollah installations in southern Lebanon over the prior 24 hours killed at least 50 fighters including six sector commanders and regional officials.
The heightened regional tensions kindled a year ago by Palestinian armed group Hamas’ attack from Gaza on southern Israel have escalated in recent weeks to engulf Lebanon.
On October 1, Iran fired missiles at Israel. Yesterday, Iran warned Israel not to follow through on threats of retaliation.
Its foreign minister said any attack on Iran’s infrastructure would be avenged while a senior Iranian official told Gulf states it would be ‘unacceptable’ and would draw a response if they allowed their airspace to be used against Iran.
Western powers are seeking a diplomatic solution, fearing the conflict could roil the wider, oil-producing region.
The Pentagon announced that Gallant will not go ahead with a visit to Washington and a meeting with his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, planned for today.
In a televised speech from an undisclosed location, Hizbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem said he backed attempts to secure a truce.
For the first time, the end of war in Gaza was not mentioned as a pre-condition to halting the combat in Lebanon. Qassem said Hizbollah backed moves by Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, a Hizbollah ally, to secure a halt to the fighting.
Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on Qassem’s remarks. US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told a briefing in Washington that Hezbollah had “changed their tune and want a ceasefire” because the group is “on the back foot and is getting battered” on the battlefield.
Qassem said Hizbollah’s capabilities were intact despite ‘painful blows’ from Israel. “Dozens of cities are within range of the resistance’s missiles. We assure you that our capabilities are fine.”
The Israeli military said it had sent the 146th Division into south Lebanon, the first reserve division to have been deployed over the border, and was extending ground operations against Hizbollah from southeast Lebanon into its southwest.
A military spokesperson declined to say how many troops were in Lebanon at one time. But the military had previously announced that three other army divisions were operating there, meaning that thousands of soldiers were likely on Lebanese soil.
The Israeli military announced on October 1 that ground forces had entered Lebanon, initially with commando units that were then followed by regular armoured units and infantry units.
Overnight, Israel again bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs where Hizbollah is headquartered and said it had killed a figure responsible for budgeting and logistics, Suhail Hussein Husseini – the latest in a string of assassinations of some of Hizbollah’s top officials.
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