Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant provided the first confirmation Tuesday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had “probably” killed Hashim Safieddine, the likely successor to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, last week.
Safieddine (or Safi a-Din) was targeted in an Israeli airstrike on an underground Hezbollah facility in Beirut. Many sources claimed that he was dead, as it was unlikely that anyone could have survived, and Hezbollah had lost contact with him. But Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said as recently as Monday that the IDF had not yet officially confirmed his death.
That changed on Tuesday, with Gallant’s comments, as the Times of Israel reported:
“Hezbollah is an organization without a leader, Nasrallah was eliminated, his replacement was probably also eliminated. This has a dramatic effect on everything that happens. There is no one to make decisions, no one to act,” Gallant says during a visit to the IDF Northern Command, adding that Hezbollah’s firepower capabilities have also taken a heavy blow.
Gallant said that Iran was losing its “most valuable asset” in the region, meaning Hezbollah, which had previously been a powerful deterrent against an Israeli strike on Iran.
Hezbollah’s leadership has been in total disarray since the sensational pager attacks three weeks ago, shortly after the Israeli cabinet officially decided to make the safe return of evacuated residents to northern Israel one of its war aims.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
