Middle East crisis live: Israel says it killed Hezbollah's suspected next leader | Israel

Israel said on Tuesday that people had been killed in an attack it carried out in Beirut three weeks ago Hashem Safieddinethe presumed successor to the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallahwho was also killed in an Israeli attack last month.

Safieddine was chairman of Hezbollah's highest policy-making body, the Executive Council, and also a cousin of the former secretary general. And as William Christou, writing for the Guardian from Beirut, writes, he has been credited with much of the same charisma that inspired Nasrallah's cult of personality.

After Safieddine's assassination, only Naim Qassem, Hezbollah's deputy secretary general, remains of Hezbollah's publicly accessible senior leadership. Qassem has been the face of the group since Nasrallah's assassination, but does not enjoy the same popularity among Hezbollah supporters as the late secretary general.

It remains unknown who will take the helm as the group's next leader. In a speech two weeks ago, Qassem said that appointing a new leader was a complex process and would take time. In addition to strikes against Hezbollah's political leadership, almost all of Hezbollah's senior military cadres have been killed by Israel in the last three months.

Despite the losses in its command structure, Hezbollah insisted that the group had retained its organizational strength. The group said this was evidenced by Israel's lack of progress in southern Lebanon.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian's live coverage of the Middle East conflict.

Israel said on Tuesday that people had been killed in an attack it carried out in Beirut three weeks ago Hashem Safieddinethe presumed successor to the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallahwho was also killed in an Israeli attack last month.

“We have reached Nasrallah, his successor and most of Hezbollah's leadership. We will reach out to anyone who threatens the security of the civilian population of the State of Israel,” said Israeli Army Lt. Gen Dear Halevi.

There was no immediate response from Hezbollah.

Confirmation of Safieddine's death came as Antony Blinken was due to visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, a last-minute change in plans to travel to Jordan was due to scheduling problems.

In Tel Aviv on Tuesday, the U.S. Secretary of State urged Israeli leaders to work toward a ceasefire in Gaza as fighting continued to rage in the territory's north, where aid was lacking, and Israeli attacks rocked Lebanon.

“I firmly believe that the death of Sinwar represents an important opportunity to bring the hostages home, end the war and ensure the security of Israel,” Blinken said in his meeting with the Israeli president Isaac Duke.

prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer Blinken said at their meeting that Israel is not implementing the so-called master plan aimed at isolating and starving the northern Gaza Strip. Blinken asked Netanyahu to clarify publicly, but the prime minister declined, according to a U.S. official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

“They said it was absolutely not our policy,” the US official said, according to AFP, adding that Israeli officials had been told to “make a greater effort to actually say that publicly.”

In other developments:

• Israel is considering using private security companies – possibly involving British special forces veterans – to deliver aid to Gaza. As the Guardian has learned, conditions in the north of the strip are deteriorating dramatically.

• At least three Israeli strikes targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday evening. according to the official Lebanese news agency ANI. Two of the strikes occurred in the Laylake district near a stadium. The attacks came shortly after the Israeli military issued new evacuation warnings for residents of certain buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs.

• Lebanon's Health Ministry on Tuesday raised the death toll from Israel's attack near Beirut's main government hospital on Monday to at least 18 dead, including four children, and 60 wounded. Israeli fighter jets struck a Hezbollah target near Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut, but did not target the hospital and it was not affected by the attack, the Israeli military said on Tuesday.

• Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 63 people in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 2,530the Lebanese government announced on Tuesday. It also said that more than 11,800 people had been injured by Israeli attacks on Lebanon since October 2023.

• Seven Palestinian civilians were killed during Israeli artillery fire Wafa, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, citing local sources. Separately, at least three Palestinians were killed and several injured in an Israeli drone strike on a group of people in western Gaza City, Anadolu news agency said.

• Palestinians under Israeli siege in the northern Gaza Strip are “rapidly using up all available means of survival,” The UN humanitarian office has warned. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) accused Israel of rejecting its requests to deliver life-saving aid to the northern Gaza Strip, as well as requests to help rescue dozens of people trapped under their collapsed homes in the Falouja area were included, having rejected the Jabalia refugee camp in the north.

• Lebanon will need $250 million a month to help more than a million people displaced by Israeli attacks. The minister responsible for responding to the crisis announced this on Tuesday. Nasser Yassin told Reuters that the government's response, supported by local initiatives and international aid, covered only 20% of the needs of 1.3 million people.

• Keir Starmer has accused Vladimir Putin of cutting off food supplies to Gaza after British intelligence suggested that Russia had increased its attacks on Ukrainian ports. Starmer said it was clear the Russian president was “ready to bet on global food security” after several grain ships bound for developing countries were damaged by Russian attacks and were believed to have stopped a ship carrying vegetable oil for the World Food Program in Palestine .

• The FBI is investigating the leak of two top-secret intelligence documents detailing Israel's preparations for a retaliatory strike against Iran. reported the Washington Post. “The FBI is investigating the suspected loss of classified documents and is working closely with our partners in the Departments of Defense and Intelligence,” the FBI said in a statement.