Israeli media: expectations about who might succeed Nasrallah at the head of “Hezbollah”
Against the background of information about the illness of the Secretary-General of the Lebanese “Hezbollah” Hassan Nasrallah, Israeli media reported reports that included speculation and expectations about his possible successor in the leadership of the group.
The Israeli Walla website indicated that Nasrallah’s cousin, Hashem Safi al Din, is likely to succeed Nasrallah.
The report recalled that in 2008 the first news of Iran’s blessing of Safi al Din as successor to Hassan Nasrallah was issued there.
It is noteworthy that Hashem Safi al Din was born in 1964 in the village of Deir Qanoon in southern Lebanon.
He received an education in Najaf and Qom, like Hassan Nasrallah, and was among the founders of Hezbollah in 1982.
In 1994, they asked him to return to Lebanon after studying abroad to take over the position of head of the Executive Council of Hezbollah, succeeding Nasrallah, two years after Nasrallah was appointed as the group’s secretary-general following the assassination of Abbas al Moussawi by the Israeli army.
The Walla report indicates that Safi al-Din is a member of Hezbollah’s Shura Council and the group’s Resolution Council, which determines who takes the position of Secretary-General.
The report added that Safi al Din is close to the Iranians and the Revolutionary Guards, and has family links with the late commander of the “Quds Force” of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassem Soleimani, as his son married Soleimani’s daughter in June 2020.
According to the report, the other possible candidate to succeed Hassan Nasrallah is Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem, but he is considered a “more symbolic figure,” according to the report.
