Israel says ‘more than 20’ Hezbollah members killed alongside Nasrallah

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Sunday the strike that killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut also “eliminated” around two dozen other members of the Lebanese armed group.

“More than 20 other terrorists of varying ranks, who were present at the underground headquarters in Beirut located beneath civilian buildings, and were managing Hezbollah’s terrorist operations against the state of Israel, were also eliminated,” in Friday’s air strike, the military said in a statement that listed some of them.

The dead included, according to the statement, Ibrahim Hussein Jazini and Samir Tawfiq Dib, who the military said were “among Nasrallah’s closest associates” in the Lebanese armed group.

“Due to their proximity to him, they served a significant role in the day-to-day operations of Hezbollah and Nasrallah in particular,” the statement said.

The military in recent days has pounded Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and also hit the group’s stronghold in southern Beirut with intensified strikes.

Hezbollah confirmed Nasrallah’s death on Saturday, and on Sunday it said Ali Karake, the group’s top commander in southern Lebanon, was also killed in the Friday attack.

The Israeli military said on Sunday that Abed al-Amir Muhammad Sablini and Ali Naaf Ayoub also died with Nasrallah.

Earlier on Sunday, the military said it had killed Nabil Qaouq, a senior Hezbollah official, in an air strike in a Beirut suburb on Saturday.

Qaouq was a member of Hezbollah’s central council and was considered “to be close to Hezbollah’s senior commanders”, a statement said.

A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that Israel also carried out a strike on Sunday in southern Beirut that targeted Abu Ali Reda, a commander of one of the group’s sectors in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah said in a statement that Reda was “fine”.