Israeli military says it has killed nephew of Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem

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BEIRUT – Israel said on April 9 it has killed the nephew of Naim Qassem, leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, in a strike on Beirut overnight.

“The IDF struck in the Beirut area and eliminated Ali Yusuf Harshi, the personal secretary and nephew of Hezbollah secretary-general Naim Qassem,” the Israeli military said.

By attacking Israel on March 2, Hezbollah entered the war in the region on Iran’s side, two days after the United States and Israel began air strikes against Iran.

Hezbollah attacked Israel after Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of the war.

Israel said it would respond forcefully. It has since carried out air strikes that have killed more than a thousand people.

Israel has already weakened Hezbollah’s military capabilities and hammered it with a series of assassinations since the Gaza war began on Oct 7, 2023.

Despite a US-backed ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon in 2024 after more than a year of fighting, Israel has carried out regular strikes against what it has identified as Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. It accused the group of seeking to rearm.

Hezbollah refused to disarm under a US proposal aimed at extending the ceasefire.

Qassem threatened Israel directly, saying missiles would fall on it if it resumed a broad war on Lebanon.

In 2024, Israel killed Qassem’s predecessor, veteran leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an air strike on a Beirut suburb, the climax of a conflict that began when Hezbollah fired at Israeli positions at the border in support of the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas.

Hezbollah named Qassem, who has been a senior figure in the group for more than 30 years, as its new chief a month after Nasrallah’s killing.

The group was created in 1982 by Muslim Shi’ite militants in Lebanon and backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to fight what was then the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. REUTERS