‘Lost contact’ with possible Nasrallah successor, Israel warns Gaza ahead of October 7 anniversary – News18

Hashen Safieddine, who is expected to succeed the slain Hassan Nasrallah as Hezbollah leader, is unreachable after an Israeli airstrike on Friday, three Lebanese security sources told Reuters. Reports indicated that Saffieddin, who was Nasrallah’s cousin, was the target of an Israeli strike. A senior Hezbollah source confirmed that contact with Saffieddin had been lost. “Contact with Sayed Saffiedin was lost after the violent strikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut” early Friday, the source told AFP. “We don’t know if he was at the target location or who might have been there with him.” Safieddin was born in the southern Lebanese village of Deir Qanun En Nar near Tire in 1960 and studied theology at two Shia institutions – one in Najaf , Iraq and the other in Qom, Iran. His son is married to the daughter of former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in 2021. The loss of Nasrallah’s presumptive successor would be another blow to Hezbollah and its patron Iran. Israeli strikes in the region over the past year, sharply accelerated in the past few weeks, have decimated Hezbollah’s leadership.