Israel 'wiped out' Hezbollah leadership in bombing raids

It is claimed that 20 members of militant group died in strike that killed leader Hassan Nasrallah, as Lebanon says a fifth of its population have been forced to flee

- Andy Gregory

Israel has claimed to have wiped out much of Hezbollah’s leadership in recent airstrikes, as Lebanon said the bombing campaign has now forced a fifth of the country’s population to flee their homes.

The Lebanese militant group has now confirmed the deaths of seven senior officials slain by Israel in just over a week, including its leader of 32 years, Hassan Nasrallah, in a strike Israel claimed also killed 20 other Hezbollah members in southern Beirut on Friday.

Those who were killed include founding members of the group first established by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in 1982, who had previously evaded death or detention at Israel’s hands for decades until Israel’s decision this month to launch its heaviest bombing campaign against Lebanon since the 2006 war.

After Hezbollah confirmed the death of Nabil Kaouk – who led the group’s forces in southern Lebanon during the 2006 war – in another strike on Saturday, the United States warned its ally Israel that “an all-out war with Hezbollah, certainly with Iran, is not the way” to make Israel’s own citizens safer.

As Iran vowed to retaliate and warned that the US is “complicit in all of these crimes”, spokesperson John Kirby said the White House was watching to see what Hezbollah would do to try and fill its leadership vacuum, adding: “It’s going to be tough – much of their command structure has now been wiped out.”

While Israel and Hezbollah had been trading frequent crossborder fire since Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October last year sparked the war in Gaza, Israel said this month that it was shifting its focus from Gaza to Lebanon, after launching two shock attacks in which it remotely detonated walkie-talkies and pagers used by Hezbollah.