Smokes from the rubble of a building targeted in Israeli airstrike near Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: AFP/ Getty Images.
Hezbollah on Saturday confirmed the death of Hassan Nasrallah, its longtime leader, in an airstrike on the organization’s underground headquarters near Beirut, hours after Israel said he had been killed.
Israeli forces had launched a series of airstrikes in the Hezbollah-dominated area known as the Dahiya that it said were intended to destroy Hezbollah weapons caches. An Israeli evacuation order ahead of the strikes sent more residents fleeing in search of safety and contributed to a deepening sense of dread in Lebanon.
The death of Mr. Nasrallah is a major escalation in Israel’s rapidly expanding campaign against the Iran-backed group, two weeks of back-and-forth attacks that have threatened to spiral into an all-out regional war.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, had condemned the Israeli strikes in a statement earlier on Saturday, but did not mention Mr. Nasrallah. “All the resistance forces in the region stand with and support Hezbollah,” he said.
Beirut was gripped on Saturday by a feeling that the capital was no longer safe after months of Hezbollah clashes across the country’s remote border with Israel. Thousands of people from outside Beirut spent the night sleeping on the streets and beaches of the capital.
真主黨證實其領導人在以色列空襲中死亡
真主黨週六證實，其長期領導人哈桑·納斯魯拉（Hassan Nasrallah）在貝魯特附近該組織地下總部的空襲中死亡，而數小時前，以色列稱他已被殺。
以色列軍隊在真主黨控制的達希亞地區發動了一系列空襲，稱其目的是摧毀真主黨的武器儲藏處。 以色列在襲擊前發布的疏散令導致更多居民逃離尋求安全，並加劇了黎巴嫩的恐懼感。
納斯魯拉之死是以色列針對伊朗支持的組織迅速擴大的行動的重大升級，兩週來回的襲擊有可能演變成一場全面的區域戰爭。
伊朗最高領導人阿亞圖拉·阿里·哈梅內伊在周六早些時候的一份聲明中譴責了以色列的襲擊，但沒有提及納斯魯拉。 「該地區所有抵抗力量都與真主黨站在一起並支持真主黨，」他說。
週六，貝魯特有一種感覺，在真主黨在該國與以色列的偏遠邊境發生數月衝突後，首都不再安全。 來自貝魯特以外的數千人在首都的街道和海灘上過夜。
Source: NYT
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