DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, While Hezbollah has yet to comment, Israel says it hit the group’s leaders at their headquarters in south Beirut.The Israeli military says it has killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in an air attack on Lebanon’s capital Beirut, although the group has yet to issue a statement on his fate.
“Hassan Nasrallah is dead,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani announced on X on Saturday.
Ali Karki, the commander of Hezbollah’s southern front, and additional Hezbollah commanders were also killed in the massive air strike in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh on Friday, the Israeli military claimed.
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said a total of six people were killed and 91 injured in the bombardment, which levelled six apartment buildings. Israeli air attacks continued to hammer Beirut’s southern suburbs and other areas of Lebanon on Saturday.
While Hezbollah issued no formal statement on Nasrallah, a source close to the group told the AFP news agency that contact with him had been lost since Friday.
Nasrallah, 64, has led the Iran-backed group for more than 32 years, serving as a political and spiritual leader guiding Hezbollah to a place of prominence in Lebanon.
Among his supporters, the Shia leader is lauded for standing up to Israel and defying the United States. To his enemies, he is the head of a terrorist organisation and a proxy for Iran in its tussle for influence in the Middle East.
“Hassan Nasrallah is a larger-than-life figure when it comes to the politics in the Middle East. He is the figurehead, Iran’s linchpin, if you will,” said Al Jazeera’s Stef …
