Hezbollah confirms death of leader Hassan Nasrallah in Israeli strike on Beirut

The Israeli army said it carried out a massive attack on Hezbollah's headquarters in a southern Beirut suburb on Friday

Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been killed, the Israeli army has announced. AFP

Hezbollah confirmed the death of its leader Hassan Nasrallah hours after the Israeli military announced he had been killed in a strike targeted at the central headquarters of the Lebanese militant group in Beirut on Friday.

The group vowed in a statement to continue its battle against Israel "in support of Gaza and Palestine, and in defence of Lebanon."

"Yesterday (Friday), September 27th, 2024, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation and one of its founders, was eliminated by the IDF," the army said in a statement, adding the attack also killed Ali Karaki, the Commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front, and another Hezbollah commander.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps deputy commander for operations Brig Gen Abbas Nilforooshan was also killed in Friday's strike on Beirut, Iranian media reported.

The army said its fighter jets conducted a targeted strike on the central headquarters of Hezbollah "which was located underground embedded under a residential building" in Dahieh. Six buildings were almost entirely destroyed in the attack, leaving huge craters behind.

At least six people were killed and 91 wounded in the attack, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said, but the death toll is likely to rise significantly as rescue teams comb through the rubble.

"The strike was conducted while Hezbollah’s senior chain of command were operating from the headquarters and advancing terrorist activities against the citizens of the State of Israel," the Israeli army said in the statement.

The death of Hezbollah's leader marks a significant Israeli blow to the group and to the Iran-backed "Axis of Resistance." Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that all the resistance forces in the region stand by Hezbollah and support it. He called on all Muslims to support the people of Lebanon in confronting Israel.

"The Zionist criminals must know that they are too small to cause significant harm to the strong structure of the Lebanese Hezbollah," he said shortly after the Israeli announcement.

The Iranian foreign ministry said Hezbollah's path would continue despite the death of its leader. "The glorious path of the leader of the resistance, Hassan Nasrallah, will continue and his sacred goal will be realised in the liberation of Quds (Jerusalem), God willing," the ministry's spokesman Nasser Kanani in a post on social media X mourning his death.

Thousands of people have fled the area, congregating in squares, parks and sidewalks in downtown Beirut and seaside areas.

Nasrallah became the leader of Hezbollah following the death of his mentor Sheikh Abbas Al Musawi after his assassination by Israel in 1992, ten years after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that sparked the group's inception. Hezbollah has since become the strongest political power in Lebanon, arguably better armed than the country's own forces, and a foe of the Israeli military in the south, notably during the month-long 2006 war. Israel tried and failed to assassinate Nasrallah in 2006, destroying his offices and home.

He had become an increasingly elusive figure, despite appearing regularly on television to give briefings. He has not been spotted in public for years.

Hezbollah began low-intensity attacks across the border a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 251, taking them into Gaza.

Israel has bombarded the Gaza Strip daily in the year since, killing more than 41,455 people and displacing millions multiple times. Hezbollah has said it will not end its assaults over the border – which have been reaching further into Israeli territory – until Israel stops its attacks on Gaza.

It has in the past days shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed more than 700 people and sparked an exodus of around 118,000 people. The bombing followed an Israeli operation which blew up thousands of walkie talkies and radios owned by the group, killing 42 and injuring thousands.

In a statement, Hamas condemned the Israeli attacks on residential buildings in a southern Beirut suburb and the killing of Nasrallah. "We consider this a cowardly terrorist act, a massacre and a heinous crime that proves once again the bloodiness and brutality of this [Israeli] occupation."

The Israeli army's chief of staff said it had not emptied its "toolbox" with his killing. "This is not the end of our toolbox. The message is simple, anyone who threatens the citizens of Israel – we will know how to reach them," Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi said in a statement.

Strikes continued into Saturday morning on dozens of Hezbollah targets in the area of Bekaa in eastern Lebanon and across the south, its military said, adding it had targeted launchers aimed at Israeli civilians, weapons storage and Hezbollah's infrastructure.

Hezbollah had launched a surface-to-surface missile from Lebanese territory into central Israel, which fell in an open area, the Israeli military said, adding it had called up three reserve battalions for operational activities and to strengthen the defence in the central command.

Hezbollah on Saturday claimed a rocket attack on northern Israel, the first after heavy Israeli strikes pounded Beirut's southern suburbs overnight. Its fighters targeted Kibbutz Kabri in northern Israel "with a salvo of Fadi-1 rockets", the group said in a statement.

The escalation has sharply increased fears the conflict could spiral out of control, potentially drawing in Iran, Hezbollah's principal backer, as well as the United States.