Hezbollah successor Hashem Safieddine missing after Israel istrike

Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Hezbollah 's presumed new leader Hashem Safieddine is missing after Israel Defense Forces targeted him in an aerial strike.

Saffieddine has been missing since the IDF strike Wednesday night on an area in southern Beirut known for housing Hezbollah and its command structure, Lebanese and Israeli sources told CNN , NBC News and Axios .

Saffieddine, whose name Axios spells Hashim Safi-Al-Din, has been out of contact with Hezbollah since the IDF strike that targeted the leader of Hezbollah's executive committee and the terrorist organization's presumed successor to Hassan Nasrallah .

The IDF killed Nasrallah in a separate air strike in Beirut on Sept. 27.

Saffieddine was located in a bunker deep underground when the IDF attacked the compound from the air.

The U.S. State Department in May 2017 designated Saffieddine a "specially designated global terrorist."

The strike against the bunker was much larger than the one that killed Nasrallah and caused an unknown number of casualties.

The IDF said the strike focused on Hezbollah's intelligence leadership.

The IDF has not commented on the potential death of Saffieddine but in a news release on Friday said it "conducted a precise, intelligence-based strike" in Beirut that killed Hezbollah communication networks leader Mohammad Rashid Sakafi.

"Sakafi was a senior Hezbollah terrorist who was responsible for the communications unit since 2000," the IDF said. "His efforts within the unit garnered him respect, and as a result of his position, Sakafi was closely affiliate with senior Hezbollah terrorists."

IDF and Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet said they killed "two senior terrorists" in Hamas ' military wing in Lebanon .

Muhammad Hussein Ali al-Mahmoud directed directed terrorist activities in Judea and Samaria, according to IDF and Shin Bet. He "was responsible for Hamas' entrenchment inside Lebanon, using it to supply weapons for rocket attacks against Israel and in attempts to manufacture advanced weaponry," according to a joint statement.

Said Alaa Naif Ali "carried out terrorist attacks against Israeli targets and worked to recruit Hamas operatives inside Lebanon." He was killed in a rare airstrike near Lebanon's northernmost city of Tripoli.

On Saturday , the Israel Air Force struck Hezbollah terrorists operating within a command center inside a mosque adjacent to the Salah Ghandour Hospital in southern Lebanon.

"Hezbollah has deliberately embedded its weapons beneath residential buildings in the heart of the city of Beirut, endangering the population in the area," the IDF said in a statement.

Conversely, Hezbollah rocket barrages from Lebanon went into Israel.

On Friday, Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon killed at least 25 people and injured 127, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

They occurred in towns and villages across southern Lebanon, including Beirut.

At least 1,426 people have died and 7,597 people were injured by Israeli military action in Lebanon since September 16, according to a CNN tally based on the ministry's data.

With Israel mounting a ground offensive in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah reported new clashes with Israeli forces.

About 185 foreign nationals from the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and Finland have been flown out of Lebanon . They were repatriated in the last 24 hours in the Dutch city of Eindhoven on Friday night, according to the country's Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday urged the complete suspension of the sale of arms used in the war in Gaza , though his nation has not been involved in their supply.

"Right now, the priority is returning to a political situation, that we stop the delivery of arms being used in the war in Gaza. France is not delivering them," Macron told French radio station France Inter.