Hezbollah's Safieddine 'Unreachable' Since Friday

A damaged vehicle lies amidst the rubble in the aftermath of the Israeli strikes, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in the Chiyah area of Dahiyeh, Beirut, October 5, 2024. REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki

Israeli air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs since Friday have kept rescue workers from searching the site of an Israeli strike suspected to have killed Hezbollah’s anticipated next leader, three Lebanese security sources told Reuters on Saturday.
One of the sources said Safieddine, widely expected to succeed slain leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, had been unreachable since the strike on Friday.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. As the Israel-Hamas war reaches the one-year mark, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, most of them since Sept. 23, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.