The leader of the Shia movement "Hezbollah" Hassan Nasrallah is alive, said a Reuters source close to the group, as well as interlocutors from the Iranian news agency "Tasnim" and the Saudi "Al Hadat", after the Israeli strike on the movement's central headquarters in a suburb of Beirut.
Tasnim notes that Nasrallah is in a "safe place" and "Hezbollah" will make a statement soon. A senior Iranian source told Reuters that Tehran was "checking the situation" of the Hezbollah leader. At the same time, a source of Sky News Arabia said that the Israeli side assessed the operation to kill Nasrallah as a success.
64-year-old Nasrallah becomes secretary general of "Hezbollah" in 1992 after the group's previous leader, Abbas al-Musawi, was assassinated.
On the evening of September 27, the Israeli military struck the central headquarters of "Hezbollah" in Beirut, targeting Nasrallah. "Al Jazeera" TV reported that four buildings in the area of the impact were completely destroyed.
Axios reports that an Israeli official said the U.S. was informed of the strike minutes before it was carried out, but two senior Washington sources said the U.S. received no warning.
On September 23, Israel announced the start of a "preventive military operation" against "Hezbollah", then claimed to have eliminated several of the group's commanders. Lebanon reported more than 500 deaths as a result of the Israeli strikes.