Israeli forces have taken out the would-be successors of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday, without naming them.
"We've degraded Hezbollah's capabilities. We took out thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah's replacement, and the replacement of the replacement," Netanyahu said in a pre-recorded video message.
Earlier, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Hashem Safieddine, the man expected to replace the slain Nasrallah, had probably been "eliminated".
It was not immediately clear whom Netanyahu meant by the "replacement of the replacement".
Safieddine, a top Hezbollah official was widely expected to succeed Nasrallah, according to Reuters.
"Hezbollah is an organization without a head. Nasrallah was eliminated, his replacement was probably also eliminated," Gallant told officers at the military's northern command center, in a brief video segment distributed by the military.
"There's no one to make decisions, no one to act," he said.
Safieddine had been running Hezbollah alongside its deputy secretary general Naim Qassem since Nasrallah's assassination and was expected to be formally elected as its next secretary general, although no official announcement had yet been made.
Qassem said in a televised statement on Tuesday that the group will elect a new secretary general and will announce it once it has been done.
