Hezbollah loses contact with top leader Hashem Safieddine: Sources | Israel attacks Lebanon News

It is reported that Hashem Safieddine was inside the intelligence headquarters under Hezbollah when there was an Israeli air strike.

Hezbollah has lost contact with one of its top leaders, Hashem Safieddine, who was seen as a potential successor to slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, since Friday after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighborhood, a Lebanese security source told Al Jazeera.

As chairman of the armed group’s Executive Council, Safieddine is the organization’s most senior member. He is a cousin of the late Nasrallah, who was the secretary-general, said Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari, reporting from Beirut.

Jabbari said there was an “urgency” on the part of Lebanese and Hezbollah officials to allow local rescue teams to remove the bodies from the Friday morning attack.

He added that most Hezbollah commanders are “shadowy”, with Safieddine’s name coming to light after many believed he might replace Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli military strike last month, as Hezbollah’s secretary-general.

“Now that he may also be killed, the issue of succession within the organization leaves questions,” explained Jabbari.

‘Breach of intelligence’

But the lack of contact with Safieddine also proves there is an intelligence breach in the group, “allowing Israel to find and attack individual leaders,” Al Jazeera political analyst Marwan Bishara said.

Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University, says that losing contact with Nasrallah’s successor is “another serious and important obstacle for Hezbollah”.

“The word that they are no longer in contact with him is an attempt to prepare Hezbollah supporters for the upcoming announcement that he is dead,” he told Al Jazeera from Ottawa, Canada.

On Friday, Reuters news agency reported that Israel’s Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said the military was still considering the outcome of the airstrike, and confirmed that it was aimed at Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.

Hezbollah has not officially commented on Safieddine’s condition since the attack.

Israel launched an intense bombing campaign in Lebanon two weeks ago, as it approaches its northern border after a year of cross-border trade that forced thousands of civilians to flee from both sides of the border. Israel aims to secure the safe return of its people to their homes in northern Israel as it grinds down Hezbollah positions.

Last week, Israel launched a “limited ground plan” in southern Lebanon while intensifying airstrikes in the area and in areas south of Beirut.

The Associated Press reported, citing the Israeli military, that so far nine soldiers have been killed in ground battles with Hezbollah fighters.

According to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health, more than 2,000 people have been killed since Israel bombed the country and forced 1.2 million people to flee their homes.