Hezbollah leader was killed last year inside war operations room, aide discloses
Hassan Nasrallah died in an Israeli air strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 27.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike last year while inside the militant group’s war operations room, according to new details disclosed by a senior official.
A series of Israeli air strikes flattened several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 27, killing Nasrallah. The Lebanese Health Ministry said six people died.
According to news reports, Nasrallah and other senior officials were meeting underground.
The assassination of Nasrallah, who had led Hezbollah for 32 years, turned months of low-level strikes between Israel and the militants into all-out war that battered much of southern and eastern Lebanon for two months until a US-brokered ceasefire took effect on November 27.
“His Eminence (Hassan Nasrallah) used to lead the battle and war from this location,” top
Hezbollah security official Wafiq Safa told a news conference on Sunday near the site where Nasrallah was killed: “His Eminence (Hassan Nasrallah) used to lead the battle and war from this location.”
He said Nasrallah died in the war operations room. He did not offer other details.
Lebanese media had reported that Safa was a target of Israeli air strikes in central Beirut before the ceasefire but appeared unscathed.
During the first phase of the ceasefire, Hezbollah is supposed to move its fighters, weapons and infrastructure away from southern Lebanon north of the Litani River, while Israeli troops that invaded southern Lebanon need to withdraw all within 60 days.
Lebanese army soldiers are to deploy in large numbers and alongside United Nations peacekeepers be the sole armed presence in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s current leader, Naim Kassem, said in a televised address on Saturday that its fighters could strike Israel if its troops do not leave the south by the end of the month.
Safa said Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who negotiated the ceasefire deal with Washington, told Hezbollah the government will meet with US envoy Amos Hochstein soon.
Mr Hochstein had led the shuttle diplomacy efforts to reach the fragile truce.
