Israeli forces have killed the would-be successors of late Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said.
In a pre-recorded video message issued on Tuesday evening, Netanyahu said: “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.”
He did not identify Nasrallah's replacement by name but was understood to mean Hashem Safieddine.
Safieddine, who was the cousin of the former leader Hassan Nasrallah as well as a senior figure in his own right, was targeted in a strike on Thursday night.
A Hezbollah official told news agency Reuters on Sunday that Israel was obstructing search and rescue efforts in an area where Nasrallah's potential successor Hashem Safieddine was thought to have been when Israel bombed Beirut's southern suburbs on Thursday.
It was not immediately clear who Netanyahu meant in his comments by the "replacement of the replacement".
The Times reports that there has also been no sign of Esmail Ghaani, the head of the Iranian Quds Force, the overseas arm of the Revolutionary Guard, for over a week. Israel has not said whether he was also an intended target, but there has been increasing speculation that he was attending the same meeting as Safieddine.
Iran has denied he was killed but failed to provide evidence, the Times said.
Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Beirut last month, which is also said to have killed 20 other Hezbollah militants.
Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Nasrallah's replacement had probably been "eliminated".
"Today, Hezbollah is weaker than it has been for many, many years," the Prime Minister said in his video message, which was directed at the people of Lebanon.
Citing solidarity with Hamas, Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on October 8 last year, a day after Hamas Palestinian militants attacked southern Israel from Gaza.
Some 60,000 Israeli citizens in the country's north have since been forced to leave their homes, while Israel's stated objective is to make its northern areas safe from Hezbollah rocket fire and allow those displaced residents to return.
"Israel has a right to defend itself. Israel also has a right to win. And Israel will win," Netanyahu said.
He urged Lebanon to "take back your country" and return it to a path of peace and prosperity.
"If you don't, Hezbollah will continue to try to fight Israel from densely populated areas at your expense. It doesn't care if Lebanon is dragged into a wider war," he added.
"Don't let these terrorists destroy your future any more than they've already done," he added. "You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza. It doesn't have to be that way."
