RINO: Agencies – Hezbollah confirmed on Wednesday that Hashem Safieddine, the senior leader who was widely expected to succeed Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli attack. The group said Safieddine was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Safieddine had been running Hezbollah’s affairs with Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general, after Nasrallah’s assassination last month and was expected to be formally chosen as the group’s new secretary-general, although no official announcement has been made.

Safieddine, Nasrallah’s cousin, was a member of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, a body responsible for military operations. He was also the head of the group’s executive council, which oversees the group’s financial and administrative affairs.

He played a major role in speaking on behalf of the Hezbollah group during the year of hostilities with Israel that ultimately led to his death, delivering speeches at funerals and other events that Nasrallah had long been unable to attend for security reasons.

His assassination further weakened Hezbollah’s top leadership at a time when the southern suburbs of Beirut, the eastern Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon, the group’s strongholds, are coming under Israeli strikes as its fighters seek to repel an Israeli ground incursion.