Al Jazeera :
The Lebanese group Hezbollah has confirmed the death of Hassan Nasrallah, its longtime leader, in an air strike on the group’s underground headquarters near the capital, Beirut.
Hours after Israel claimed killing the 64-year-old Nasrallah, the Iran-backed Hezbollah on Saturday said its leader “has joined his fellow martyrs” and pledged it would “continue the holy war against the enemy and in support of Palestine” amid fears that a regional war is now inevitable.
Israel carried out a large strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday evening, which it said targeted the Hezbollah leader, flattening at least six residential buildings.
Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for more than three decades, is by far the most powerful target to be killed by Israel in weeks of intensified fighting with Hezbollah. According to the United Nations, more than 50,000 people have fled Lebanon for Syria, as Israel’s attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 700 people since Monday.
Israeli jets pounded south Beirut and its outskirts throughout the night into Saturday, in the most intense attacks on the Hezbollah stronghold since the group and Israel last went to war in 2006.
Nasrallah had rarely been seen in public since 2006. He was elected secretary-general of Hezbollah in 1992, aged 32, after an Israeli helicopter gunship killed his predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi.
Hezbollah
The Lebanese group confirmed in a statement its leader had been killed “following the treacherous Zionist strike on the southern suburbs” of Beirut.
The group’s statement said Nasrallah had “joined his great and immortal martyred comrades, whose path he led for nearly 30 years, during which he led them from victory to victory”.
The group said it pledged “to the highest, most sacred and most precious martyr in our journey” to “continue its jihad in confronting the enemy, in support of Gaza and Palestine, and in defence of Lebanon and its steadfast and honourable people”.
Hamas
Hamas has condemned the killing of the Lebanese leader as “cowardly, terrorist act”.
