Hezbollah chief killed in Israeli strike on Beirut

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been killed, the Lebanese movement said Saturday, dealing a seismic blow to the Iran-backed group that has been engaged in a year of cross-border hostilities with Israel.

Hezbollah's statement confirms earlier announcements from Israel's military that they had killed Nasrallah in an air strike on Beirut's southern suburbs, in a move that could destabilise Lebanon as a whole.

"Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah, has joined his great, immortal martyr comrades whom he led for about 30 years," Hezbollah said in a statement.

Rarely seen in public, Nasrallah enjoyed cult status among his Shiite Muslim supporters, and was the only man in Lebanon with the power to wage war or make peace.

Before his death was confirmed, a source close to Hezbollah told AFP contact with the group's leader had been "lost" since Friday night.

"Hassan Nasrallah is dead," Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani had announced earlier on X.

Another military spokesman, Captain David Avraham, told AFP the Hezbollah chief had been "eliminated" in Friday night strikes on Beirut.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday condemned what he called Israel's "short-sighted" policy in the region.

"The massacre of the defenceless people in Lebanon once again... proved the short-sighted and stupid policy of the leaders of the usurping regime," Khamenei said in a statement, without mentioning Nasrallah's fate.

Hezbollah began low-intensity cross-border attacks a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.

Israel has over the past few days shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed more than 700 people and displaced around 118,000.

Israel's army chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi on Saturday said: "The message is simple, anyone who threatens the citizens of Israel -- we will know how to reach them."

The military also said "most of the senior leaders of Hezbollah have been eliminated", after having announced earlier the deaths of Hezbollah commanders Muhammad Ali Ismail and Ali Karake, among others.

- 'Very sophisticated' -

The military added that it had hit over 140 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since Friday night.

It continued to pound Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold into Saturday, sending panicked families fleeing.

One strike hit the second and third floors of a building, a Lebanese security official said.

An AFP photographer said dozens of buildings have been destroyed.

The blasts that rocked southern Beirut late Friday were the fiercest to hit the area since Israel and Hezbollah last went to war in 2006.

In the Haret Hreik neighbourhood, an AFP photographer saw craters up to five metres (16 feet) wide.

Middle East expert James Dorsey described Friday's attack as "very sophisticated", adding it "demonstrates not only significant technological capacity but just how deeply Israel has penetrated Hezbollah".

Before it was confirmed, Iranian media downplayed the report from Israel of Nasrallah's death, describing it as "rumours".

Posters of Nasrallah were erected in Tehran bearing the slogan "Hezbollah is alive".

Israeli military spokesman Shoshani later said there was "still a way to go" in Israel's fight against Hezbollah, adding that it was believed to have "tens of thousands of rockets".

- 'On the streets' -

After Friday's heavy strikes, Israel issued fresh warnings for people to leave part of the densely populated Dahiyeh suburbs before dawn.

Hundreds of families spent the night outside, in central Beirut's Martyrs' Square or along the seaside boardwalk.

South Beirut resident Rihab Naseef, 56, slept outside a church.

"I didn't even pack any clothes, I never thought we would leave like this and suddenly find ourselves on the streets," Naseef told AFP.

Israel's military also announced strikes Saturday on the Beqaa area in eastern Lebanon and on the south.

It said a surface-to-surface missile fired from Lebanon fell in an open area in central Israel and another was intercepted in the north.

Early Saturday, Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack on kibbutz Kabri in northern Israel.

It later said it launched "a salvo of Fadi-3 rockets" towards the Ramat David airbase in northern Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah until the northern border with Lebanon is secured.

"Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safe," he said.

- 'Outrageous threats' -

Israel has raised the prospect of a ground operation against Hezbollah, prompting widespread international concern.

"We must avoid a regional war at all costs," UN chief Antonio Guterres told world leaders, again appealing for a ceasefire.

Diplomats have said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to halting the fighting in Lebanon and bringing the region back from the brink.

Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,586 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

The Lebanon violence has raised fears of a wider spillover, with Iran-backed militants across the Middle East vowing to keep fighting Israel.

Netanyahu addressed Iran in his UN General Assembly speech, saying: "I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you."

"There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach."

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi at the Security Council denounced what he called Netanyahu's "outrageous threats to invade other states and kill more people".