Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed, dealing a seismic blow to the Lebanese group that has been engaged in a 12 months of cross-border hostilities with Israel.
Hezbollah’s assertion on Saturday got here shortly after Israel’s navy mentioned it had killed Nasrallah in an airstrike within the southern suburbs of Beirut, a transfer that might destabilize Lebanon and set off a regional warfare.
Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for greater than 30 years, is by far essentially the most highly effective particular person killed by Israel in weeks of intensifying preventing with Hezbollah. The Israeli navy mentioned it carried out a exact airstrike on Friday evening as Hezbollah leaders met at their headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut.
The Lebanese Public Well being Ministry mentioned six individuals have been killed and 91 wounded within the assaults, which leveled six condo buildings. Ali Karki, the commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Entrance, and different commanders have been additionally killed, the Israeli navy mentioned.
The Gaza-based Palestinian group Hamas condemned Nasrallah’s assassination as a “cowardly terrorist act.”
Israel has shifted the main focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, the place intense shelling has killed greater than 700 individuals, in line with Lebanon’s Well being Ministry, after cross-border exchanges intensified over the previous week. Nearly all of Lebanese deaths occurred on Monday, the deadliest day of violence since Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil warfare.
