[🇱🇧] Lebanon - Israel Conflict -2024

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-iran-missile-attack-middle-east-10-02-24-intl-hnk/index.html

Lebanon's military says Israel crossed 400 meters into territory before withdrawing​

From CNN’s Tamara Qiblawi and Mostafa Salem

IDF handout photo geolocated to be in southern Lebanon.

Lebanon’s military said Wednesday an Israeli military force breached the border, reaching 400 meters (about a quarter of a mile) into Lebanese territory before withdrawing.

“An Israeli enemy force breached the Blue Line by approximately 400 meters into Lebanese territory in the areas of Khirbet Yaroun and the Aadeyseh, then withdrew after a short period,” the army said.

The Blue Line is a reference to the demarcation border area that separates Israel and Lebanon.

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for comment.

The IDF also released a photo of its troops inside Lebanon that CNN has geolocated to be inside southern Lebanon.

 

[Ghazi52]

Israel says it has killed about 250 Hezbollah fighters since ground operations in Lebanon began​

From Tamar Michaelis, CNN's Jeremy Diamond and Pauline Lockwood

Residents run for cover following an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday.
Hassan Ammar/AP

Israel’s military says it has killed “approximately 250” Hezbollah militants since launching a ground offensive in southern Lebanon earlier this week.

About 100 of the Iran-backed group’s fighters have been killed in the last 24 hours, the Israel Defense Forces said in a briefing Friday.

“What we have seen in these days of more intense fighting … I can tell you that alongside our casualties we’ve been able to inflict a serious blow to Hezbollah, to its senior level and to its tactical level commanders,” the IDF’s international spokesperson, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, told reporters.

 

[Ghazi52]

Israel has described its operations in southern Lebanon as “limited, localized and targeted.”

In response to a CNN question about the disparity between such statements and the large number of southern Lebanese villages being asked the evacuate, Shoshani said, “Sadly, Hezbollah has embedded widely and deeply into Lebanon.”

 

[Ghazi52]

Hashem Safieddine is rumored to be the next leader of Hezbollah. Here's what we know​

From CNN's Nadeen Ebrahim

Hashem Safieddine, center, attends the funeral ceremony of Hezbollah military commander Mohamed Naim Nasser in Beirut, in July.
Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu/Getty Images

The fate of a possible successor to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is unclear following an Israeli airstrike on Beirut.

An Israeli official told CNN that Hashem Safieddine was the target of the strike, but it is unclear if he was killed.

Safieddine is a maternal cousin of Nasrallah – the two studied in Iran together in the early 1980s. Just like Nasrallah, Safieddine is a staunch critic of Israel and the West, with deep alliances with the Iranian leadership.

Safieddine served as head of Hezbollah’s executive council and, until his predecessor’s death, was seen as one of the most likely heirs to the organization’s highest-ranking seat. The group has yet to name a successor to Nasrallah.

 

[Ghazi52]

Who is Hashem Safieddine, rumored to be the next Hezbollah chief?​

By Nadeen Ebrahim, CNN
October 4, 2024

Hashem Safieddine speaking at a funeral earlier this year.
Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu/Getty Images


The fate of a possible successor to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is unclear following an Israeli airstrike on Beirut.

An Israeli official told CNN that Hashem Safieddine was the target of the strike, but it is unclear if he was killed.

Safieddine is a maternal cousin of Nasrallah – the two studied in Iran together in the early 1980s. Just like Nasrallah, Safieddine is a staunch critic of Israel and the West, with deep alliances with the Iranian leadership.

Safieddine served as head of Hezbollah’s executive council and, until his predecessor’s death, was seen as one of the most likely heirs to the organization’s highest-ranking seat. The group has yet to name a successor to Nasrallah.

The executive council is one of five bodies that make up the Shura Council, which is the organization’s decision-making body. The executive council oversees political matters, as opposed to the Jihad Council which is the group’s military body, which Safieddine is a member of.

Safieddine has previously spoken of the “strong relationship” between Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and especially Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in US airstrike at Baghdad airport in 2020. Safieddine’s son is married to Soleimani’s daughter.

The Shiite cleric was born in 1964 in the southern Lebanese village of Deir Qanoun En Nahr. Like the late Hezbollah leader, he wears the black turban signaling that he is a “Sayyid,” a Shiite honorific title denoting descent from Prophet Mohammed.

The 60-year-old cleric has had a visible presence across Hezbollah’s political stage, especially over the past year. Throughout the Gaza war, Safieddine would make statements denouncing Israel’s actions in the enclave and on his country’s southern border.

 

[Ghazi52]

Nasrallah “started tailoring positions for him within a variety of different councils within Lebanese Hezbollah. Some of them were more opaque than others. They’ve had him come, go out and speak,” Phillip Smyth, an expert who studies Iran-backed Shiite militias, told Reuters.

Speaking at the funeral ceremony of one of the slain Hezbollah members in May, Safieddine boasted that his group is nonetheless strong and resilient, prioritizing – along with their Iranian allies – the Palestinian cause and the need to liberate the Palestinian people.