Barely 24 hours after announcing the death of Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah, the Israeli army announced the assassination of another senior member of the Lebanese Shiite group, Nabil Qaouk. He was one of the few remaining senior leaders of the organization and was the deputy head of Hezbollah’s central council.
Qouk was one of the candidates to succeed Hasan Nasrallah at the head of Hezbollah, killed this Friday in an Israeli airstrike, as reported by Israel on Saturday morning, thus opening a new front in the escalation of tensions which currently operates. in the Middle East in recent weeks. These two deaths represent a hard blow for the leadership of Hezbollah after several weeks of clashes with Israel.
Qouk joined Hezbollah in 1980 and served as an MP in southern Lebanon alongside the organization, added the armed forces, which described him as a regular figure in media representing the Shiite group.
It is not yet clear who will take the reins of Hezbollah, but another name that sounds like a possible successor to Nasrallah is that of his maternal cousin and head of the Shiite group’s Executive Council, Imam Hashem Safi al Din. In addition to leading the movement’s executive body, he has also been a military commander in southern Lebanon since 2010, a key position in cross-border operations against Israel. Like most senior Hezbollah officials, Safi al Din is on Washington’s terrorist list because he is “a key member” of the group, according to a memo published in 2017 by the US State Department.
Meanwhile, Israel reports that it will continue to “strike and eliminate the commanders of the terrorist organization Hezbollah and take action against anyone who threatens the citizens of the State of Israel.”
