Hezbollah chief killed in Israeli strike on Beirut

AFP | Beirut, Lebanon

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Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been killed, the Lebanese movement said yesterday, dealing a seismic blow to the Iran-backed group that has been engaged in a year of cross-border hostilities with Israel.

Hezbollah's statement came after Israel's military said it had killed Nasrallah in an air strike on Beirut's southern suburbs, in a move that could destabilise Lebanon as a whole. Iran, which arms and finances Hezbollah, said a senior member of its Revolutionary Guard Corps was killed in the same strike.

"Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah, has joined his great, immortal martyr comrades whom he led for about 30 years," Hezbollah said in a statement. It said he was killed with other group members "following the treacherous Zionist strike on the southern suburbs" of Beirut.

AFP journalists heard a passer-by scream "Oh my God!", and women weeping in the streets after Hezbollah announced the news. Rarely seen in public, Nasrallah had enjoyed cult status among his supporters, and was the only man in Lebanon with the power to wage war or make peace.

"Hassan Nasrallah is dead," Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani announced earlier on X. Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, in a televised briefing, called Nasrallah "one of the greatest enemies of the State of Israel of all time" and added: "His elimination makes the world a safer place." In Tehran, posters of Nasrallah were erected bearing the slogan "Hezbollah is alive".

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani posted on X that Nasrallah's "sacred goal will be realised in the liberation of Quds (Jerusalem), God willing". Earlier, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned what he called Israel's "short-sighted and stupid policy", without referring to Nasrallah's fate.

Hezbollah in Lebanon began low-intensity cross-border attacks a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, triggering war in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas on Saturday condemned Nasrallah's killing as a "cowardly terrorist act". Israel has shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed more than 700 people, according to Lebanon's health ministry, as cross-border exchanges escalated over the past week.

Most of those Lebanese deaths came on Monday, the deadliest day of violence since Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war. The United Nations said around 118,000 people have been displaced. Israel's military said "most of the senior leaders of Hezbollah have been eliminated", and added that it had hit more than 140 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since Friday night.

Biden says Hezbollah leader’s killing a ‘measure of justice’

US President Joe Biden yesterday called the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah “a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese civilians.” In a statement a day after an Israeli air strike killed Nasrallah, Biden reiterated US support for “Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and any other Iranian-supported terrorist groups,” and said he had directed the defense secretary to “further enhance the defense posture of US military forces” in the region.