Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah killed by Israel in major escalation of conflict | Hezbollah

Hezbollah’s veteran leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who led the group for more than three decades, has been killed by Israel in a series of strikes on the group’s underground headquarters in Beirut, Israel and Hezbollah have confirmed.

The announcement by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Saturday morning came after overnight speculation about the fate of Nasrallah, following the strikes in Dahieh, a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital, on Friday.

Later on Saturday, Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, confirmed his death, saying Nasrallah “had joined his fellow martyrs.” It added that the group would “continue the holy war against the enemy and in support of Palestine.”

The statement, however, did not mention who would succeed Nasrallah, or how the group would respond to the assassination.

Gunfire could be heard across Beirut on Saturday afternoon as mourners fired in the air to commemorate his death.

France also confirmed that it believed Nasrallah had been killed. “According to the information we have, Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah, would indeed have died,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement.

The killing marks a major escalation in the crisis in the Middle East and threatens to reshape the course of events in the region where Nasrallah was a significant actor.

Iran considers Hezbollah to be one of its most significant assets. Responding to the assassination, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Muslims “to stand by the people of Lebanon and the proud Hezbollah with whatever means they have and assist them in confronting the… wicked regime (of Israel)”.

Khamenei, who Reuters reported had been transferred to a secure location inside Iran, did not mention Nasrallah in his comments. He added: “The fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the forefront.” Israeli “criminals must know that they are far too small to cause any significant damage on the strongholds of Hezbollah in Lebanon,” he said. “All the resistance forces in the region support and stand alongside Hezbollah.”

The killing threatens to draw in Iran, which has thus far been reluctant to involve itself in the fighting between the Lebanon-based group and Israel.

Iranian state media on Saturday also announced the death of a prominent Revolutionary Guards general in the strike. Abbas Nilforushan, 58, was sanctioned by the US in 2022 for his role in suppressing protests after the death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by Iran’s morality police for not wearing a headscarf correctly,

According to sources in Israel, the Israeli security cabinet had previously pulled back from plans to kill Nasrallah, but having established that he was due to attend a meeting at the command complex, approved a plan to kill him in an operation reportedly codenamed “New Order ”.

Reports in the Israeli media said the assassination had been carried out by a squadron of F15I jets equipped with bunker-busting bombs although Israel refused to comment on claims they were US-supplied type 84 munitions.

The news was initially broken by military spokesperson Lt Col Nadav Shoshani in a brief post on X saying: “Hassan Nasrallah is dead.” In a statement issued shortly afterwards, the IDF said Nasrallah had been killed along with Hezbollah’s southern front commander, Ali Karki, and other commanders attending the meeting.

“Following precise intelligence from the IDF and the Israeli security establishment, IAF (Israeli air force) fighter jets conducted a targeted strike on the central headquarters of the Hezbollah terrorist organization which was located underground, embedded under a residential building in the Dahieh area of ​​Beirut ,” the statement said.

“The strike was conducted while Hezbollah’s senior chain of command was operating from the headquarters and advancing terrorist activities against citizens of the state of Israel.”

The Israeli military said it was on “high alert” and prepared for a wider escalation.

Shoshani later predicted that Hezbollah would continue to target Israel. “We’ve seen Hezbollah carry out attacks against us for a year. It’s safe to assume that they are going to continue carrying out their attacks against us, or try to,” he said.

After Israel’s announcement, the streets of Beirut emptied. Storefronts in Gemayzeh – an upmarket neighborhood in east Beirut – were mostly closed.

The Lebanese army deployed throughout Beirut on Saturday afternoon, standing guard at major intersections throughout the city, probably in anticipation of public reaction. Lines formed at supermarkets as people rushed to buy basic goods, such as water and dried foods, while people waited in queues at cash machines. Low-flying Israeli patrol drones buzzed overhead throughout the day.

Lebanon’s cabinet announced it would suit for an extraordinary session at 7.30pm local time in response to the events of the last two days.

In Dahieh, one resident told the Guardian: “I’m in despair, I don’t know what to feel.” Other supporters of Hezbollah struck a different tone. “The group will go on, it’s not just centered around one leader,” Fatimah, a resident of Dahieh, said from her car in downtown Beirut where she has been sleeping with her husband and son since the strikes on Dahieh started last week.

Hezbollah’s second in command, Hashem Safieddine, who could succeed Nasrallah, was also reportedly targeted in Friday’s airstrike.

The IDF’s chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, said on Saturday that the elimination of Nasrallah was “not the end of our toolbox”, indicating that more strikes were planned. He said the strike targeting the Hezbollah leadership was the result of a long period of preparation.

The military said it was mobilizing additional reserve soldiers as tensions escalated with Lebanon, activating three battalions of reserve soldiers to serve across Israel. He sent two brigades to northern Israel earlier in the week to train for a possible ground invasion.

Shortly before the strike, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed during a speech at the UN general assembly to keep fighting in Lebanon, crushing hopes that Israel would agree to a 21-day truce proposed by the US and France.

“There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that is true of the entire Middle East,” Netanyahu said in New York.

Among Hezbollah’s constituents, Nasrallah was viewed with a prophet-like fervor, seen as the liberator of southern Lebanon from Israel’s 18-year occupation. At Hezbollah rallies, supporters chant “Labaik and Hussein and “Labaik ya Nasrallah” – “O Hussein, O Nasrallah, I am here for you” – shouting their devotion to Hussein, a key figure in Shia Islam, and Nasrallah.

When Nasrallah spoke in televised addresses, supporters would tune in for guidance on political, spiritual and cultural issues. Many Lebanese people attribute the failure of the 2019 revolution to a speech by Nasrallah, when he told his supporters it was time to get off the streets, depriving the protest movement of its non-sectarian character.

Whoever replaces the enigmatic former secretary general will have to deal with an organization that over the last year, has lost almost every senior military leader and is on the back foot of the Israeli bombing campaign.

The death also throws the fate of the Lebanese state into question. Hezbollah is deeply embedded in the state, controlling a key share of parliament and exercising influence over several ministries, such as the directorate of general security. Lebanon’s foreign policy is largely dictated by the group, particularly when it comes to neighboring states such as Israel.

Hezbollah began firing into Israel one day after Hamas’s 7 October attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.

Israel has in recent days shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed more than 700 people and displaced about 118,000.