Israel on high alert after killing Hezbollah chief

Israel is on high alert for a broader conflict after the elimination of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, but hopes his death will cause the Iran-backed group to change course, a military spokesman said on Saturday.
“We hope this will change Hezbollah’s actions,” Lieut Col Nadav Shoshani said in a media briefing after the military confirmed it had killed Nasrallah.
But he said there was still a way to go in degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities.
“We’ve seen Hezbollah carry out attacks against us for a year. It’s safe to assume that they are going to continue carrying out their attacks against us or try to,” he said.
The military said earlier that Nasrallah had died in an airstrike on the group’s central headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Hezbollah said on Saturday that it was targeting Israeli sites including Rosh Pina in the north near the border with Lebanon with missiles in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese cities, villages and civilians.
Hezbollah has yet to issue any statement on the status of Nasrallah, who has led the group for 32 years.
During Nasrallah’s decades in charge, Hezbollah has grown into a regional force that has projected Tehran’s influence across the Middle East.
His death would not only mark an enormous blow to Hezbollah, but also to Iran, whose Revolutionary Guards founded the group in 1982.
The Israeli military “eliminated … Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation,” Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote in a statement on X.
Another top Hezbollah leader — Ali Karaki — was also killed, he added.
“Hassan Nasrallah will no longer be able to terrorise the world,” the Israeli military said in a separate post.
Friday’s attack on Hezbollah’s command centre, followed by further airstrikes on Saturday, have escalated the conflict between Israel and the heavily armed group, adding to concerns the region could be sucked into a broader war.
Adraee’s statement, posted in Arabic, said Israel had struck Hezbollah’s underground headquarters while its leadership were “coordinating terrorist activities against the citizens of Israel”.
Israel followed up on Friday’s attack with a new wave of airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs and other areas of Lebanon on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been transferred to a secure location inside the country with heightened security measures in place, two regional officials briefed by Tehran told Reuters.
The sources said Iran was in constant contact with Lebanon’s Hezbollah and other regional proxy groups to determine the next step after Israel announced that it had killed Nasrallah.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said six people were killed in the strike that took out the Hezbollah leader, with the toll set to rise. The state-run National News Agency said six buildings in the densely populated Haret Hreik neighbourhood were levelled, and footage showed rescue workers pulling children from under the rubble.
The attack came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York, vowed to press ahead with the attack on Hezbollah in defiance of US-led efforts to secure a ceasefire.
“As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice and Israel has every right to remove this threat,” he said.
Israel has been bombarding southern Lebanon all week, after saying it was switching the focus of its military operations away from the still-ongoing campaign against Hamas in Gaza. Hezbollah stepped up rocket attacks in response, firing at Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities.
Fears are growing that the conflict could spiral further into a regional war that could drag in the United States and Iran. The Iranian embassy in Beirut called Friday’s airstrikes a “dangerous escalation that changes the rules of the game,” and said Israel will be appropriately punished.
Washington had “no advance warning” of the latest Israeli attack, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was still gathering information about the Israeli strike and warned that the past week’s escalation has left the region and the world confronting a “perilous moment.”
The US has stepped up military and financial support for Israel since the Gaza conflict began nearly a year ago. The Biden administration has also expressed frustration at Netanyahu’s government for failing to conclude a cease-fire deal and sought to prevent a wider war.
Iran could seek to hit back after Friday’s strike on Beirut. The extent of its retaliation may depend on whether the US and Israel are presenting a united front, and the countries need to work together to avoid a regional war, according to a senior Israeli official, who asked not to be identified.
Israel’s airstrikes have killed more than 700 people since Sunday, including at least 50 children, according to Lebanese officials. Tens of thousands have fled the bombardment in the country’s south and northeast regions.
Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari earlier on Friday hinted at potential targeting of planes arriving in Beirut, saying Israel would not allow the city’s civilian airport to become a hub for the transfer of weapons.
Friday night’s events show that Israel is not seeking a truce, Lebanon Prime Minister Najib Mikati said. Hezbollah’s political wing carries plenty of clout in Lebanon and participates in government, though many in the country oppose the group’s ideology and accuse it of doing Iran’s bidding.
Chief among Netanyahu’s stated goals in the campaign against Hezbollah is a return of residents of communities in the north of Israel, who have been displaced due to almost 12 months of cross-border rocket fire between the two sides.
Hezbollah began firing missiles at Israel just after the start of the country’s war against Hamas in Gaza last October, in support of the Palestinian group. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are designated terrorist organisations by the US.
Hezbollah has said it would continue fighting until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, a prospect that looks distant with talks deadlocked for several months.