Lebanese Security Source to Asharq Al-Awsat: Safieddine Likely Killed in Israeli Strike

Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine (C) attends the funeral ceremony of slain top commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut's southern suburbs on August 1, 2024. (AFP)
Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine (C) attends the funeral ceremony of slain top commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut's southern suburbs on August 1, 2024. (AFP)
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Lebanese Security Source to Asharq Al-Awsat: Safieddine Likely Killed in Israeli Strike

Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine (C) attends the funeral ceremony of slain top commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut's southern suburbs on August 1, 2024. (AFP)
Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine (C) attends the funeral ceremony of slain top commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut's southern suburbs on August 1, 2024. (AFP)

A Lebanese security sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that Hashem Safieddine, the potential successor to Hassan Nasrallah as secretary general of Hezbollah in Lebanon, was killed in an Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut last week.

It added that the Iran-backed party has so far refrained from announcing his death until it can retrieve his corpse.

Israeli drones have been flying around the clock for the fifth consecutive day over the targeted area that its jets bombed with around 73 tons of explosives.

The Israeli army said it had struck a Hezbollah intelligence headquarters.

An Israeli a government spokesperson said on Monday that Tel Aviv could not confirm Safieddine was killed in the attack.

Asked if Israel could confirm the death, spokesperson David Mencer told an online briefing: "We don't have that confirmation yet. When it is confirmed, as and when, it will be on the IDF (Israeli military) website."

A Hezbollah official told Reuters on Sunday that Israel was obstructing search and rescue efforts in an area where Safieddine is thought to have been when Israel bombed the area on Thursday.

Israel has killed much of Hezbollah's military command and senior leadership in nearly a year of fighting that began when Hezbollah opened a front in solidarity with Palestinians the day after Hamas' deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.



Tunisia’s Kais Saied Wins Landslide Reelection

 Tunisian president and candidate for re-election Kais Saied joins his supporters after the announcement of the provisional results for the presidential elections, in the capital Tunis, Tunisia, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP)
Tunisian president and candidate for re-election Kais Saied joins his supporters after the announcement of the provisional results for the presidential elections, in the capital Tunis, Tunisia, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP)
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Tunisia’s Kais Saied Wins Landslide Reelection

 Tunisian president and candidate for re-election Kais Saied joins his supporters after the announcement of the provisional results for the presidential elections, in the capital Tunis, Tunisia, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP)
Tunisian president and candidate for re-election Kais Saied joins his supporters after the announcement of the provisional results for the presidential elections, in the capital Tunis, Tunisia, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP)

President Kais Saied won a landslide victory in Tunisia's election Monday, keeping his grip on power after a first term in which opponents were imprisoned and the country's institutions overhauled to give him more authority.

The North African country's Independent High Authority for Elections said Saied received 90.7% of the vote.

“We’re going to cleanse the country of all the corrupt and schemers,” the 66-year-old president said in a speech at campaign headquarters. He pledged to defend Tunisia against threats foreign and domestic.

The closest challenger, businessman Ayachi Zammel, won 7.4% of the vote after sitting in prison for the majority of the campaign while facing multiple sentences for election-related crimes.

Saied's win was marred by low voter turnout. Election officials reported 28.8% of voters participated on Oct. 6 — a significantly smaller showing than in the first round of the country's two other post-Arab Spring elections and an indication of apathy plaguing the country's 9.7 million eligible voters.

Saied’s most prominent challengers — imprisoned since last year — were prevented from running, and lesser-known candidates were jailed or kept off the ballot. Opposition parties boycotted the contest, calling it a sham.

Saied won his first term in 2019 promising to combat corruption. In 2021 he declared a state of emergency, suspended parliament and rewrote the constitution to consolidate the power of the presidency — a series of actions his critics likened to a coup.

Tunisians in a referendum approved the president's proposed constitution a year later, although voter turnout plummeted.