We’re ending our live coverage here, but if you want to read the latest on the strike on central Beirut, William Christou has this wrap of the day.
More than 100 people were killed across Lebanon by Israeli strikes on Sunday, according to the country’s health ministry. It said more than 1,000 Lebanese have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, without saying how many were civilians. The government said a million people – a fifth of the population – have fled their homes.
A strike was carried out near the Kola intersection in central Beirut in the early hours of Monday morning, the first time Beirut has been hit outside the southern suburbs since 2006. The strike hit the upper floor of an apartment building. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said in a statement that three of its leaders were killed in the attack and blamed Israel.
Israel said it bombed Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday. The airstrikes on Yemen’s port of Hodeidah were a response to Houthi missile attacks on Israel in recent days, Israel said. The Houthi-run health ministry said at least four people were killed and 29 wounded. Images from Hodeidah showed parts of the city covered in a massive pall of dust, and towering explosions in the distance.
Hezbollah confirmed that Nabil Kaouk, the deputy head of the militant group’s central council, was killed on Saturday, making him the seventh senior Hezbollah leader slain in Israeli strikes in a little over a week. The group also confirmed that Ali Karaki, another senior commander, died in the airstrike on Friday strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah denied claims that Abu Ali Rida, the commander of the group’s Bader Unit in south Lebanon had been killed. Rida is the last remaining senior military commander of Hezbollah that remains alive.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said Israel’s airstrikes in Lebanon had “wiped out” Hezbollah’s command structure, but he warned the group will work quickly to rebuild it. President Joe Biden said Sunday he would speak soon with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and believes that an all-out war in the Middle East must be avoided.
Israel on Sunday vowed to keep up its assault. “We need to keep hitting Hezbollah hard,” Israel’s military chief of staff Herzi Halevi said. Israel’s military said it struck dozens of targets in Lebanon including launchers and weapons stores and had intercepted eight projectiles coming from the direction of Lebanon and one from the Red Sea. It also said dozens of Israeli aircraft had attacked power plants and Ras Issa and Hodeidah ports in Yemen, accusing the Houthis of operating under Iran’s direction and in cooperation with Iraqi militias.
The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has broken his silence on Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah. On Sunday, Syria’s state-run outlet Sana quoted Assad as saying: “We are certain that the Lebanese national resistance will continue on the path of struggle and justice in the face of the occupation, and will continue to support the Palestinian people in their struggle for their just cause.”
Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian said Israel should not be allowed to attack countries in the Iran-aligned “Axis of Resistance” one after the other. Pezeshkian, in comments carried by state media, said Lebanon should be supported. An Iranian Revolutionary Guards deputy commander, Abbas Nilforoushan, was also killed in the attack that killed Nasrallah in Beirut. Pezeshkian said “we cannot accept such actions and they will not be left unanswered. A decisive reaction is necessary.”
Saudi Arabia has stressed the “need to preserve Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”. In a statement released on Sunday amid Israel’s deadly airstrikes, the Saudi foreign ministry said it was “following with great concern the developments taking place in Lebanon”.
Israeli opposition lawmaker Gideon Saar rejoined Netanyahu’s government on Sunday, a step that is likely to strengthen the Israeli prime minister politically. Saar, who has been one of Netanyahu’s most vocal critics in the past few years, is due to serve as a minister without a portfolio and have a seat in the prime minister’s security cabinet, Israeli media reported. Expanding the government to include Saar’s strengthens Netanyahu by making him less reliant on other members of his ruling coalition, which has been struggling in the polls.
Who will succeed Hassan Nasrallah?
The loss of its senior commander leaves Hezbollah in total disarray, stripped of capable operators who possessed deep military and international experience.
“Hezbollah is facing a reality much worse than any worst-case scenario they might have war gamed. The chain of command is obliterated,” said Naveed Ahmed, an independent Gulf-based security analyst and expert on Hezbollah.
The most obvious candidate to succeed Nasrallah is Hashem Safieddine, who chairs Hezbollah’s executive council. A cousin of Nasrallah, Safieddine was born in 1964 in southern Lebanon and is another founder member. He is thought to have spent many years in Qom, the Iranian religious city, and has been entrusted by Hezbollah with a variety of tasks over the decades, including managing the organisation’s extensive portfolio of legal and illegal businesses.
A powerful public speaker, Safieddine is popular within the organisation and among its sponsors in Tehran. Last year he said: “It may take one war, two wars, three wars, multiple confrontations, military confrontation, the sacrifice of martyrs, bearing the burden, dealing with the consequences, but ultimately, [Israel] must come to an end.”
Israel’s assassination campaign has so far targeted Hezbollah’s military commanders, leaving the top political echelons largely unscathed. Safieddine sits on the Jihad Council of the organisation however, so may soon be targeted too.
“It is impossible to predict who would be a successor right now as the Israeli targeted strikes continue to take out commanders. It’s in Hezbollah’s interest to not publicly declare a successor. Nasrallah’s funeral, if at all held, would be a rich source of intelligence and targets,” Ahmed said.
