(Files) An image grab taken from Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV shows the Lebanese group's chief Hassan Nasrallah addressing the nation from an undisclosed location on September 19, 2024. (Photo by Al-Manar / AFP)
Jerusalem: The Israeli military announced on Saturday that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut the previous night.
"Hassan Nasrallah is dead," military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani announced on X.
Captain David Avraham, another military spokesman, also confirmed to AFP that the Hezbollah chief had been "eliminated" following strikes Friday on the Lebanese capital.
Hezbollah has yet to confirm any casualties from Israel's latest attacks.
Meanwhile a source close to the Lebanese group meanwhile told AFP on condition of anonymity that contact with Nasrallah had been lost since Friday evening.
Contact with the group leader had been lost for two days and he had been rumoured killed during Israel's last war with Hezbollah in 2006, the source said, adding that he later re-emerged unscathed.
A military statement said the strikes also killed Ali Karake, who the statement identified as commander of Hezbollah's southern front, and an unspecified number of other Hezbollah commanders.
Israel has over the past 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.
