Hezbollah confirmed on Saturday that Hassan Nasrallah—who has led the Iran-backed terrorist group for over three decades—was killed in an airstrike carried out by Israel.
The Israeli military had said Nasrallah was killed on Friday in what they describe as targeted airstrikes on Hezbollah’s headquarters, which were embedded under residential buildings in a suburb of Beirut.
At the age of 32, Hezbollah unanimously elected Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as secretary-general in 1992 to succeed Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi who was killed in a rocket attack by Israeli helicopter gunships in southern Lebanon.
In their statement, the IDF said that during his reign, “he was responsible for the murder of many Israeli civilians and soldiers, and the planning and execution of thousands of terrorist activities.”
“He was responsible for directing and executing terrorist attacks around the world in which civilians of various nationalities were murdered,” the statement added.
Earlier, the IDF had also announced that they killed two other senior members of Hezbollah during targeted airstrikes in Lebanon late on Friday.
“Ali Ismail was responsible for directing numerous terrorist attacks against the State of Israel, including the firing of rockets toward Israeli territory and the launch of a surface-to-surface missile toward central Israel on Wednesday,” the IDF said.
According to Iranian state media, Iran Revolutionary Guards’ (IRGC) deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan was also killed by the airstrikes on Hezbollah’s Beirut headquarters.
Other senior commanders of that Hezbollah unit were also killed in the targeted strike, Israel’s military said.
According to the IDF, Qabisi joined Hezbollah in the 1980s and worked in several significant military roles within the terrorist organization, including as a senior officer in Hezbollah, and commander of its Precision Guided Missile Unit.
Qabisi was a “significant source of knowledge in the field of missiles,” and enjoyed close ties to senior military leaders in Hezbollah, the IDF said.
It is not clear how many people were injured or killed during the strike on Hezbollah’s central headquarters and Israel has not yet commented on the death toll.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry says six people were killed and 91 wounded in several Israeli strikes on Friday. The Epoch Times could not independently verify those figures.
In a recorded message, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Lebanese civilians to heed Israeli calls to evacuate, saying “take this warning seriously.”
“Please get out of harm’s way now,” Netanyahu said. “Once our operation is finished, you can come back safely to your homes.”
During his appearance, the Israeli leader also defended Israel’s strikes on Lebanon amid concern that its offensive with Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran could spill over into a wider regional conflict.
“We face savage enemies who seek our annihilation, and we must defend ourselves against these savage murderers, [who] seek not only to destroy us but also destroy our common civilization and return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror,” Netanyahu said.
“Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safely,” Netanyahu said.
