Middle East war latest: Hezbollah leader Nasrallah killed in Beirut strike, Israel says
The Israeli military said they have killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, in a strike in Beirut on Friday.
“Hassan Nasrallah is dead,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani announced on X. Military spokesman Captain David Avraham also confirmed to AFP that the Hezbollah chief had been “eliminated” following strikes on the Lebanese capital.
The military said that they carried out a precise airstrike while Hezbollah leadership was meeting at their headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut.
Nasrallah has led Hezbollah for more than three decades.
The Middle East is on tenterhooks over whether the conflict will now spill over into all-out war.
More to come.
Natasha Gordon
Nasrallah survived previous home attack in 2006
Natasha Gordon
Prior to the IDF claims it had killed Nasrallah, Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at the Chatham House policy institute in London told the Times of Israel: “Hezbollah will not collapse if Nasrallah is killed or incapacitated, but this will be a major blow to the group’s morale. It would also underline Israel’s security and military superiority and access."
In 1985, Nasrallah called for the "obliteration" of Israel.
In 2006, he survived an early IDF strike which saw Israeli plans bomb his home and offices.
In a speech earlier this week - following the detonation of pages and phones used by Hezbollah members - he said Israel had "crossed all red lines".
Discovery of plans from an Iran-led move to eliminate Israel by 2040
Natasha Gordon
The Times of Israel has quoted an un-named senior military source who spoke of the discovery of plans from an Iran-led move to eliminate Israel by 2040.
To avoid that, the IDF had decided to do all it could to depower Hezbollah.
“It’s impossible to reverse it without a general war. That was the assumption — a general war with Hezbollah, which entails the possibility of a broader war with Iran,” he said.
“The other way to do it was to take him out. If you take him out, you not only neutralise that front — because nothing else will — but you also break a lynchpin. You break a central axis of the axis.
“About 10 days ago or two weeks ago, the cabinet made a decision that we cannot have – after a year – Israelis who are basically refugees in their own land,” the official said.
“So we added a formal war aim to bring our people back, to degrade Hezbollah’s power, to be able to push them back from the border, to destroy the infrastructure along the border, to change the balance of forces." the official told the Times of Israel.
“The most important thing that we did was to try to take out about half of the missile and rocket capabilities that he built up over the last 30 years with Iran and to take it out in a few hours. And we did.
“I can’t tell you what will evolve, but I can tell you that this could be a pivot. We don’t seek a broader war. In fact, we seek not to have a broader war and Iran has to consider what it does now."
IDF claims it has killed other senior members of Hezbollah
Natasha Gordon
The IDF has also claimed it has killed other senior members of Hezbollah, including the commander of the southern front Ali Karaki.
The IDF also said that Air Force jets “conducted a targeted strike on the central headquarters of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation".
“The strike was conducted while Hezbollah’s senior chain of command were operating from the headquarters and advancing terrorist activities against the citizens of the State of Israel.”
Nasrallah became the head of Hezbollah in 1992 after Abbas Musawi was killed by an Israeli military strike.
Prior to the IDF comments about the presumed death of Nasrallah, the military said several rockets had been fired towards Israel from Lebanon.
Natasha Gordon
The Israeli Defense Forces said the "precise strike" had targeted Hezbollah's "central headquarters", adding that it was "embedded under residential buildings in the heart of the Dahieh in Beirut".
"Hassan Nasrallah will no longer be able to terrorize the world," it said.
Natasha Gordon
'Hassan Nasrallah is dead': Military spokesman announces
Natasha Gordon
The Israeli military said they have killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, in a strike in Beirut on Friday.
“Hassan Nasrallah is dead,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani announced on X. Military spokesman Captain David Avraham also confirmed to AFP that the Hezbollah chief had been “eliminated” following strikes Friday on the Lebanese capital.