Hashem Safieddine had been expected to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, his cousin. It was not immediately clear who “the replacement of the replacement” was.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested in a video message released on Tuesday that Israel had not only killed the presumed successor of Hezbollah’s assassinated leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in airstrikes last week outside Beirut, but also the successor’s potential replacement.
“We took out thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement of the replacement,” Mr. Netanyahu said. The statement was an apparent reference to Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Mr. Nasrallah’s who was expected to succeed him and had been targeted in an attack in Lebanon. It was not immediately clear who “the replacement of the replacement” might be.
Neither Hezbollah nor Israel has confirmed Mr. Safieddine’s death. And Hezbollah did not immediately respond to Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks.
Earlier on Tuesday, Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said that “Nasrallah’s successor seems to have been eliminated,” without naming Mr. Safieddine.
When asked in a news briefing on Tuesday if Mr. Safieddine had been killed in the strike, the spokesman for the Israeli military, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said, “The results of that strike are still being investigated.”
The group has been firing rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas, an ally that is also backed by Iran, since the war in Gaza began. Israel has retaliated with a ground invasion and airstrikes in southern Lebanon, killing more than 2,000 people, most of them in the past three weeks alone, according to the Lebanese health ministry. The ministry’s numbers do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
This was Mr. Netanyahu’s second appeal in weeks to the Lebanese people, hoping to sway public opinion against Hezbollah. In a statement on Sept. 23, he said, “Israel’s war is not with you; it’s with Hezbollah.”
The prime minister’s videotaped speech included another direct appeal to the people of Lebanon, calling on them to “stand up” and “free” their country from Hezbollah.
“Do you remember when your country was called the pearl of the Middle East? I do,” he said, adding, “A gang of tyrants and terrorists destroyed it.”
“You can take your country back,” he added. “You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering, as we see in Gaza.”
Euan Ward contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.
