Top Hezbollah Official Killed In An Israeli Strike
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Hezbollah announced Wednesday that Hashem Safieddine, one of its top officials who had been widely expected to be the group’s next leader, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.
TYRE, Lebanon (AP) — Israeli jets struck multiple buildings in Lebanon’s southern coastal city of Tyre on Wednesday, sending up large clouds of black smoke, while Hezbollah confirmed that a top official widely expected to be the militant group’s next leader had been killed in an Israeli strike.
The state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli strike on the nearby town of Maarakeh killed three people. There were no reports of casualties in Tyre, where the Israeli military had issued evacuation warnings prior to the strikes.
Hezbollah meanwhile fired another barrage of rockets into Israel, including two that set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv before being intercepted. A cloud of smoke could be seen in the sky from the hotel where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was staying on his latest visit to the region to try to renew cease-fire talks.
The group confirmed top official Hashem Safieddine had been killed in an announcement Wednesday, one day after Israel said it had killed him in a strike earlier this month in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Safieddine, a powerful cleric within the party ranks, had been expected to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, one of the group’s founders, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last month.