Reuters was told by two regional officials that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneiwas taken to a safe location within the country under increased security measures.

They told the news agency that Iran was in constant contact with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to determine the next step after Israel announced it killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an attack on southern Beirut on Friday (see previous post at 9:04 a.m. for details). ).

Iran has been an ally of Hezbollah since the Lebanese armed group was founded in 1982. Khamenei, a former president of Iran, is the country’s head of state, in charge of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and is seen as a source of religious imitation in Iran’s Shiite system of clerical governance.

The Israeli military claims he is the leader of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah was killed along with Hezbollah commanders on Friday in airstrikes on Beirut, the Lebanese capital, which before last week was rarely a direct Israeli target.

The military said the attacks caused deaths Ali Karakewho was identified in the statement as the commander of Hezbollah’s southern front, as well as an unspecified number of other Hezbollah commanders.

The IDF said fighter jets carried out a “targeted attack” on Hezbollah’s central headquarters, which is located “underground beneath a residential building in the Dahiyeh area of ​​Beirut.”

It said the attack was launched while the Lebanese militant group’s “top chain of command” was operating from there Dahiyeh Suburb in the south of Beirut. These claims have not yet been independently verified.

In a statement, the Israeli military said of Nasrallah:

During Hassan Nasrallah’s 32-year reign as Hezbollah’s secretary general, he was responsible for the murder of scores of Israeli civilians and soldiers, as well as the planning and execution of thousands of terrorist activities.

He was responsible for directing and carrying out terrorist attacks around the world in which civilians of various nationalities were murdered. Nasrallah was the organization’s central decision maker and strategic leader.

The head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Herzl Halevimade comments after confirming the death of Hassan Nasrallah.

“Whoever threatens the State of Israel, we will know how to reach them: in the north, in the south and in more distant places,” he said in quotes from the Israeli daily Hareetz.

“This is not the last part of the toolbox, more tools are needed,” he said, adding that the IDF is prepared on all fronts.

Halevi said the attack on Beirut that killed Nasrallah had been planned for a long time and “came at the right time in a very sharp way.”

The Israeli army has officially announced the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Nasrallah, the leader of the Iran-backed militant group for 32 years, was said to be the target of Friday’s attacks on Beirut.

In a post on X, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said he “can no longer terrorize the world.” Hezbollah has not yet issued a response to the military’s announcement.

The murder of Nasrallah marked a shocking escalation on the Israeli side. For much of the early conflict with Hezbollah (which began on October 8 – a day after Hamas’s attacks on southern Israel), it was assumed that Israel would not assassinate the group’s top leaders. However, this agreement has not been honored in recent months, with Israel killing several high-ranking members of Hezbollah.

Under Nasrallah’s leadership, Hezbollah has helped train Hamas fighters and militias in Iraq and Yemen and has reportedly received rockets and missiles from Iran for use against Israel. You can read more about his political goals and ideological origins in this profile.

Thousands of residents of Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs slept in parks, on the streets or in cars overnight as they fled southern Lebanon to avoid Israeli attacks.

Many people fleeing Israeli bombing camped there Martyrs’ SquareBeirut’s most important public space. Hawra al-Husseini21, was among those who did. She described a “very difficult night” after the escape Dahiyeh sleeping on the pitch with her family.

“Rockets rained down over our house. I will never forget the screams of the children,” she told AFP.

“We are going back home (to the southern suburbs) but we are scared. It is impossible to live in this country anymore.”

Hello Ezzedine.55 also slept on the site. She had fled the Burj al-Barajneh neighborhood in Dahiyeh, where there were strikes.

“What did the (Lebanese) people do to deserve this?” she asked, adding that her house was destroyed by Israeli attacks during the 2006 war.

“They want to wage war, but what have we done wrong? We don’t have to go through what happened in Gaza.”

Rihab Naseef, 56, from south Beirut, who spent the night in a churchyard, spoke to Agence France-Presse (AFP) about his fears of an escalation of the conflict.

Naseef said:

I expected the war to expand, but I thought it would be limited to (military) targets, not civilians, homes and children.

I didn’t even pack any clothes, I never thought we would leave like that and suddenly find ourselves on the street.

I am worried and afraid of what could happen. I left home without knowing where I was going, what would happen to me and whether I would return.

As we reported, Israel launched a series of attacks in the southern suburbs of Beirut overnight. Israel again called on people to leave parts of the densely populated areas Suburbs of Dahiyeh before dawn on Saturday, forcing many families to spend the night on the streets. The Israeli military now says jet fighters have attacked “dozens” of Hezbollah targets in Turkey Bekaa Valley in the east of Lebanon, while air strikes continue in the south. According to the military, the attacks targeted buildings where weapons were stored and places where rockets were fired at Israel.

In a statement released this morning, the Israeli military said:

In the last two hours, the IAF (Air Force) carried out extensive attacks on dozens of terrorist targets of the terrorist organization Hezbollah in the Beqaa area (East) and various areas in southern Lebanon.