Israel has said it has targeted Hezbollah‘s intelligence headquarters in Beirut as part of strikes against the militant group’s leadership – with Iran‘s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed that Tehran and its proxies would not back down.
The air attack on Beirut, part of a wide assault that has driven more than 1.2 million Lebanese residents from their homes, was reported to have targeted the potential successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the long-time leader of Hezbollah assassinated by Israel a week ago.
Hashem Safieddine’s fate was unclear and neither Israel nor Hezbollah have offered any comment. Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said on Friday afternoon the military was still assessing the damage caused by the airstrikes in southern Beirut. He added that the army had “eliminated” approximately 250 Hezbollah operatives, including four battalion commanders and nine company commanders.
Earlier, the Israeli military reported that it had killed the head of Hezbollah’s communication networks, Mohammad Rashid Sakafi. It declined to comment on the report that Safieddine was targeted.
In front of a huge crowd in Tehran, in what was a rare public appearance, Khamenei said that Iran and the Tehran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas would not be cowed by Israel, two days after Tehran raised the stakes when it fired missiles at Israel, which sent ground forces into Lebanon this week.
“The resistance in the region will not back down even with the killing of its leaders,” Khamenei said while leading Friday prayers in the Iranian capital, mentioning Nasrallah in his speech and calling Iran’s attack on Israel legal and legitimate.
Iran will not “procrastinate nor act hastily to carry out its duty” in confronting Israel, he said, without issuing a direct new threat to Israel or the United States but grasping the barrel of a rifle that stood to his left.
US President Joe Biden suggested on Thursday Israel’s response to Iran’s missile salvo, which it fended off, could include a strike on oil facilities. His comments contributed to a surge in global oil prices, as traders consider potential supply disruptions. The semi-official Iranian news agency SNN quoted Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Ali Fadavi as saying on Friday that if Israel attacks, Tehran would in turn target Israeli energy and gas installations.
Hezbollah made no comment on the fate of Sakafi or Safieddine, whose brother Sayyed Abdallah Safieddine – Hezbollah’s representative to Iran – attended Khamenei’s speech in Tehran.
Khamenei said assassinations would just spur more attacks. “Every strike launched by any group against Israel is a service to the region and to all humanity,” he said.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, visiting Beirut, said his presence in the city on Friday “in these difficult circumstances” was the best evidence that Iran stood by Lebanon and Hezbollah. Mr Araqchi said Tehran supported efforts for a ceasefire in Lebanon on the condition it would be backed by Hezbollah and simultaneous with a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah and Israel started trading near-daily cross-border fire in the wake of Israel launching its war in Gaza in retaliation for the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory air and ground assault in Gaza has killed at least 41,800 people, according to the latest update from the health ministry in Gaza, and has led to more than 90 per cent of the enclave’s population being displaced.
Iran’s allies in its so-called “Axis of Resistance” – Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq — have carried out attacks in the region in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. Khamenei said Afghanistan should join the “defence”.
Israel’s military announced on Friday that two of its soldiers from the Golani Brigade had been killed in combat, and two others severely wounded. Israeli media reported that the two soldiers were killed in a drone attack launched from Iraq at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Other strikes by Israel on Lebanon on Friday cut off the main border crossing with Syria, where tens of thousands have crossed since Israel stepped up its airstrikes in the last two weeks. The Israeli military says Hezbollah uses the crossing to bring in weapons into Lebanon. Lebanese authorities have said trucks are checked and the crossing is crucial for humanitarian purposes.
People were seen picking their way around the four metre-wide crater left by the strike on Friday, with suitcases and gallons of fuel to cross into Syria.
Aid workers in Beirut told the Independent the humanitarian crisis was “devastating” and the number of displaced was virtually “unprecedented” for a country battered by years of conflict and financial ruin.
“There are no words for it. Over the last two weeks the scale of the displacement has been massive. People are sleeping on the street near the beach, they don’t have any place to go,” said Sana Basim, head of programme at Islamic Relief Lebanon.
She said Lebanese civilians were now fleeing into Syria, despite for years hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees.
“Many are unable to move, now no place is safe,” she adds. “We must stop this violence now”
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the last year, most of them in the past two weeks, Lebanese authorities said. UN officials said most of Lebanon’s nearly 900 shelters were full.
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report