Hezbollah officially announced the death of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an announcement released around 2:30 on Saturday afternoon. The announcement follows a particularly grueling night marked by more than a dozen bombardments of Beirut's southern suburbs, a diverse and densely populated neighborhood also known to be home to many Hezbollah members, thus making it the seat of much of its political and military administration.

The Israeli army announced around 11 a.m. that it had assassinated the secretary-general, while a source close to Hezbollah told AFP that the party had not been in contact with Nasrallah since the evening. According to a New York Times report citing two senior Israeli officials, the Israeli air force had dropped more than 80 bombs in the space of several minutes on Hezbollah headquarters in the Haret Hreik neighborhood. The force of the attack sent tremors throughout Beirut.

More than three hours later, Hezbollah finally released a statement announcing Nasrallah's death. Gunshots could be heard throughout Beirut as people mourned his death, shooting into the sky, and in many neighborhoods, people were on the street, screaming and wailing as the news sent its own shock waves through the country and the region.

Search and rescue operations are ongoing amid Israeli airstrikes that have not let up in the southern suburbs, southern Lebanon, in the Bekaa Valley.

According to numbers released by the Lebanese Health Ministry on Saturday evening, 1,640 people have been killed by Israeli bombardment since Oct. 8, when fighting between Hezbollah and Israel began. This toll includes 104 children and 194 women. An additional 8,404 people were wounded and "numerous" are missing and thought to be buried under the rubble.

Between Sept. 16 and Sept. 27, 2024, Israeli attacks killed 1,030 people, including 56 women and 87 children and injured 6,352. On Friday alone, 11 people were killed and 108 injured.

Key facts

In a statement read live on Hezbollah's al-Manar channel, the party declared that "the master of resistance," Hassan Nasrallah, "has moved on to be with his Lord as a great martyr." The statement continued, "The leadership of Hezbollah is committed to continuing its jihad against the enemy, in support of Gaza and Palestine, and in defense of Lebanon."

In the statement from the Israeli army announcing it had "eliminated Hassan Nasrallah," published by the Israeli army's Arabic-speaking spokesman Avichay Adraee, it also announced having killed "the commander of Hezbollah’s southern Front" and several other commanders.

The statement claims they were killed in the first strike on the party's "underground headquarters, located beneath a residential building" in southern Beirut, in an attack that "was carried out while Hezbollah leaders were present."

Hashem Safieddine, head of Hezbollah's Executive Council, cousin to Nasrallah and a key player in the movement's political and social work, was not present at the party's headquarters when it was hit, according to three senior Israeli officials cited by NYT, and one source close to Hezbollah cited by Reuters.

The Israeli officials told the American publication that they believe Safieddine could soon be announced as the party's new secretary-general.

On Saturday morning, the Israeli army stated that they had carried out "extensive strikes" on "dozens of Hezbollah targets" in southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa, adding that a ground-to-ground missile fired from Lebanon had landed in an uninhabited area in central Israel. In a statement, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing a salvo of Fadi-3 missiles at the Ramat David military base, located southeast of Haifa, shortly after 9:30 p.m.

(Credit: Jaimee Lee Haddad/L'Orient Today)

Earlier, the Israeli army had claimed on Telegram to have killed in another airstrike the commander of a missile unit of the movement and his deputy in southern Lebanon. "Other Hezbollah commanders and terrorists were eliminated alongside them," it added.

A strike also took place on Saturday morning in the Bhamdoun area.

By Saturday morning, the exact toll of the night remained unclear, as rescuers were still deployed in the field to pull residents from the rubble and transport the injured to hospitals. According to a statement published this morning at 8 a.m. by the Civil Defense, the deployment of rescue teams last night and during the night had so far identified 38 victims.

Hundreds of people who fled their homes, often following an Israeli army warning before the strikes, spent the night in the open air. Entire families were sitting on the sidewalks and squares all night in central Beirut or along the Corniche and public beach.

See pictures from Beirut's southern suburbs, the day after.

On Saturday morning, the Lebanese Ministry of Health announced that all hospitals in the bombed areas overnight would be evacuated "because of the Israeli aggression." It asked hospitals in other areas "to cease receiving non-urgent cases until the end of next week, to make room for patients from hospitals in southern Beirut."

The Israeli army claimed to have struck weapons depots, ammunition factories and Hezbollah command centers, all located, it claimed, in residential buildings, which the party denied.

Bombing continued throughout the night. By 3 a.m. Saturday morning, Israeli jets had bombed the suburbs at least 11 times, after having sent out warnings that several areas of the neighborhood could be targeted, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Israeli jets continued to fly low overhead, and an Israeli army spokesperson released a statement saying that its air force was patrolling the airport and that Israel would "under no circumstances allow the transfer of weapons" to Hezbollah. "We are aware of Iranian arms transfers to Hezbollah and we are thwarting them,” the statement reads.

Iranian reaction

The Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, condemned Israeli policy as "short-sighted" on Saturday following Israel's announcement of its assassination of Nasrallah. While he did not mention the Hezbollah leader's fate, unconfirmed at the time, Khamenei asserted that Israeli forces "are too weak" to cause "significant damage to the strong foundation" of the Lebanese movement.

"All the forces of the 'Axis of Resistance' in the region are alongside Hezbollah and support it," Khamenei assured. "Lebanon will make the aggressor and the evil enemy regret their actions by the power of God."

Context

The heavy bombardment came a few hours after a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the U.N. General Assembly. He used his speech to announce, without any mention of the cease-fire proposal put forward by his country's number one ally, that Israel will continue the war against Hezbollah until "all objectives" are achieved. The U.S. and France had announced the day prior, their proposal and support for an immediate 21-day cease-fire.

In the last week, before the mayhem of Friday night, more than 700 people had been killed in Lebanon by the Israeli air force's unprecedented bombing campaign across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa.

A possible ground operation against Hezbollah will be "as short" as possible, assured an Israeli security official Friday morning, while Chief of General Staff General Herzi Halevi had asked soldiers on Wednesday to prepare for a possible ground incursion.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in Lebanon in nearly a year, according to Beirut, more than the 1,200 killed in 33 days of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. UNICEF has expressed alarm at the "frightening pace" at which children are being killed, as well as the damage to civilian infrastructure such as pumping stations, depriving "30,000 people of access to drinking water" in the east and south of Lebanon.