Hezbollah chief killed by Israel in major escalation of conflict

BEIRUT:

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been killed, the Lebanese movement said on Saturday, 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's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared five days of public mourning for Hassan Nasrallah Saturday after the Hezbollah leader was confirmed killed in an Israeli air strike the previous day.

"I... offer my condolences for the martyrdom of the great Nasrallah and his martyred companions and announce five days of public mourning in Islamic Iran," Khamenei said in a statement carried by the official IRNA news agency.

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 Shia Muslim 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.

The military continued to pound Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold into Saturday, sending panicked families fleeing.

An AFP photographer said dozens of buildings have been destroyed.

The blasts that rocked southern Beirut late Friday were the fiercest there since Israel and Hezbollah last went to war in 2006.

In the Haret Hreik neighbourhood, an AFP photographer saw craters up to five metres (16 feet) wide.

Middle East expert James Dorsey described Friday's attack as "very sophisticated", adding it "demonstrates not only significant technological capacity but just how deeply Israel has penetrated Hezbollah".

Shoshani said Saturday there was "still a way to go" in Israel's fight against Hezbollah, adding that it was believed to have "tens of thousands of rockets".

Some Israelis hailed the reports of Nasrallah's death.

"Absolutely fantastic news, it should have been done a long time ago," said David Shalev in Israel's commercial hub Tel Aviv.

He said it sent a clear message to Israel's foes: "Don't screw with us."

After Friday's heavy strikes, Israel issued fresh warnings for people to leave part of the densely populated southern Dahiyeh suburbs before dawn.

Hundreds of families spent the night outside, in central Beirut's Martyrs' Square or along the seaside boardwalk.

"I didn't even pack any clothes, I never thought we would leave like this and suddenly find ourselves on the streets," south Beirut resident Rihab Naseef, 56, told AFP.

Israel's military also announced strikes Saturday on the Bekaa area in eastern Lebanon and on the south.

It said a surface-to-surface missile from Lebanon fell in an open area in central Israel and another was intercepted in the north.

Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack on Kabri in northern Israel, and later said it launched "a salvo of Fadi-3 rockets" towards the Ramat David airbase in northern Israel, which it has targeted before.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah until the northern border with Lebanon is secured.

"Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safe," he said.

Israel has raised the prospect of a ground operation against Hezbollah, prompting widespread international concern.

"We must avoid a regional war at all costs," UN chief Antonio Guterres told world leaders, again appealing for a ceasefire.

Diplomats have said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to halting the fighting in Lebanon and bringing the region back from the brink.

Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,586 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

The Lebanon violence has raised fears of a wider spillover, with Iran-backed militants across the Middle East vowing to keep fighting Israel.

Netanyahu addressed Iran in his UN General Assembly speech, saying: "If you strike us, we will strike you."

He added: "There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach."

Iran's official IRNA news agency reported General Abbas Nilforoushan, deputy commander of the Guards' operations, died in the strike that killed Nasrallah.