Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed inside the terrorist group’s combat operations room in an Israeli airstrike last year, according to new details disclosed by a senior Hezbollah official on Sunday.
On September 27, 2023, a series of Israeli airstrikes destroyed several buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut, killing Nasrallah. The Lebanese Health Ministry said six people died. According to news reports, Nasrallah and other senior officials were meeting underground.
The killing of Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for 32 years, escalated several months of low-level attacks between Israel and the militants into an all-out war that devastated southern and eastern Lebanon for two months until the U.S. The brokered ceasefire did not take effect in November. 27.
“His greatness [Hassan Nasrallah] “The fighting and the war were led from this location,” Hezbollah’s top security official Wafik Safa said at a news conference on Sunday near the site where Nasrallah was killed. He said Nasrallah died in the combat operations room. He did not give other details.
Lebanese media reported that Safa in central Beirut was the target of Israeli airstrikes before the ceasefire, but suffered no damage.
During the first phase of the ceasefire, Hezbollah must move its fighters, weapons and infrastructure from southern Lebanon to north of the Litani River, while Israeli troops invading southern Lebanon must withdraw all within 60 days.
Lebanese Army troops will be deployed in large numbers and will be the only armed presence in southern Lebanon along with UN peacekeepers.
Lebanon and Hezbollah have been critical of ongoing Israeli strikes and airstrikes across the country and for retaking only two of dozens of Lebanese villages under their control. Israel says the Lebanese army has not contributed to the destruction of Hezbollah’s infrastructure.
Hezbollah’s current leader Naim Qassem warned in a televised address on Saturday that its fighters could attack 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 agreement with Washington, told Hezbollah the government would soon meet with US envoy Amos Hochstein. Safa said, “And in the light of what will happen, then a situation will arise.”
Hochstein led shuttle diplomacy efforts to reach a fragile ceasefire.