The military named Muhammad Hussein Ali al-Mahmoud, who it said served as the group’s executive authority in Lebanon, as being killed in an Israeli air strike.

Said Alaa Naif Ali, a member of Hamas’ Military Wing in Lebanon, was also killed in an Israeli operation overnight on Saturday, it said.

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, confirmed the deaths of two of its fighters following Israeli air strikes in Lebanon, but provided different names for them: Mohammed Hussein Al-Louise and Saeed Attallah Ali.

Meanwhile, the potential successor to slain Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been out of contact since Friday, a Lebanese security source said on Saturday, after an Israeli airstrike that is reported to have targeted him.

In its campaign against the Iran-backed Lebanese group, Israel carried out a large strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs late on Thursday that Axios cited three Israeli officials as saying targeted Hashem Safieddine in an underground bunker.

The Lebanese security source and two other Lebanese security sources said that ongoing Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburb – known as Dahiyeh – since Friday have kept rescue workers from scouring the site of the attack.

Hezbollah has made no comment so far on Safieddine since the attack.

Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said on Friday the military was still assessing the Thursday night airstrikes, which he said targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.

The loss of Nasrallah’s rumoured successor would be yet another blow to Hezbollah and its patron Iran. Israeli strikes across the region in the past year, sharply accelerated in the past few weeks, have decimated Hezbollah’s leadership.

Israel expanded its conflict in Lebanon on Saturday with its first strike in the northern city of Tripoli, a Lebanese security official said, after more bombs hit Beirut suburbs and Israeli troops launched raids in the south.

Israel has begun an intense bombing campaign in Lebanon and sent troops across the border in recent weeks after nearly a year of exchanging fire with Hezbollah. Fighting had previously been mostly limited to the Israel-Lebanon border area, taking place in parallel to Israel’s year-old war in Gaza against Palestinian group Hamas.

Israel says it aims to allow the safe return of tens of thousands of citizens to their homes in northern Israel, bombarded by Hezbollah since October 8 last year.

The Israeli attacks have eliminated much of Hezbollah’s senior military leadership, including Secretary General Nasrallah in an air attack on September 27.

The Israeli assault has also killed hundreds of ordinary Lebanese, including rescue workers, Lebanese officials say, and forced 1.2 million people – almost a quarter of the population – to flee their homes.


--Reuters--