The FBI confirmed the investigation for the first time on Tuesday (October 22, 2024) and said that it is “working closely with our partners in the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community.”
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said on Tuesday (October 22, 2024) that it is investigating the unauthorized release of classified documents on Israel’s preparation for a potential retaliatory attack on Iran.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Monday (October 23, 2024) that the Joe Biden administration is still not certain if the classified information was leaked or hacked but that officials don’t have any indication at this point of “additional documents like this finding their way into the public domain.”

At the Pentagon, Major General Pat Ryder said that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has spoken with his counterpart, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, about the release of documents. But Mr. Ryder, who is press secretary, said he could provide no details or say when the conversation took place.

The Associated Press reported on Saturday (October 19, 2024) that U.S. officials were investigating the release. The FBI confirmed the investigation for the first time on Tuesday (October 22, 2024) and said in a statement that it is “working closely with our partners in the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community.” It did not comment further.

The documents are attributed to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency and note that Israel is still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on October 1, 2024. They were shareable within the “Five Eyes,” an intelligence alliance comprised of the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

Marked top secret, the documents first appeared online Friday (October 18, 2024) on the Telegram messaging app and quickly spread among Telegram channels popular with Iranians.

Mr. Ryder said he could provide no details about the probe, including who in the department is working with the FBI, which is leading the investigation.

“The investigation is in its first few days, so it’s important to let that investigation run its course,” he said, adding that the department takes the safeguarding of sensitive information very seriously and will continue to do so.

Jerusalem:

Israel’s army confirmed Tuesday it “eliminated” Hezbollah’s Hashem Safieddine, apparent successor of slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, in a strike in a southern Beirut suburb three weeks ago.

“It can now be confirmed that in an attack approximately three weeks ago, Hashem Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, and Ali Hussein Hazima, the head of Hezbollah’s Intelligence Directorate, were killed along with other Hezbollah commanders,” the army said in a statement.

Hezbollah has not yet issued a statement regarding the claim.  

Read | Israel Claims It Found $500 Million In “Secret” Hezbollah Bunker In Beirut

On October 8, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the military has “taken out” Safieddine, without specifically naming him.

In an address to the people of Lebanon, Netanyahu said Israeli forces “took out thousands of terrorists, including (Hezbollah leader Hassan) Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah’s replacement and the replacement of his replacement.”

Late on Tuesday, the army said that Israel’s air force “conducted a precise, intelligence-based strike on Hezbollah’s main intelligence headquarters,” in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in the Lebanese capital three weeks ago.

The statement added that over 25 militants of Hezbollah were present in the headquarters during the strike, “including Bilal Saib Aish, who was in charge of aerial intelligence gathering”.

Read | Hezbollah Airs Audio Recording From Ex Chief Killed In Israeli Strikes

A member of Hezbollah’s decision-making body and a distant relative of Nasrallah, Safieddine was out of contact since Israeli strikes on Beirut weeks ago, a high-level Hezbollah source said at the time.

A source close to Hezbollah told AFP in early October that the deeply religious cleric Safieddine, who had good relations with Hezbollah backer Iran, was the “most likely” candidate for the party’s top job.

Grey-bearded and bespectacled, Safieddine bore a striking resemblance to his distant cousin Nasrallah, but was several years his junior, aged in his late 50s or early 60s.

“We have reached Nasrallah, his replacement and most of Hezbollah’s senior leadership”, the Israeli army’s chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said in a statement late on Tuesday after the confirmation of Safieddine’s death.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Smoke billows over Beirut southern suburbs after a strike, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Sin El Fil, Lebanon October 8, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli forces have killed the would-be successors of late Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday, without naming them.

“We have degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities. We took out thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement of the replacement,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a pre-recorded video message.

Mr. Netanyahu did not identify by name Nasrallah’s replacement that he claimed Israel had killed.

A Hezbollah official said on Sunday that Israel was obstructing search and rescue efforts in an area where Nasrallah’s potential successor Hashem Safieddine is thought to have been when Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday.

Israel killed Nasrallah in a September air strike on Beirut.

Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Nasrallah’s replacement had probably been “eliminated”.

It was not immediately clear who Netanyahu meant in his comments by the “replacement of the replacement”.

“Today, Hezbollah is weaker than it has been for many, many years,” Mr. Netanyahu said in his video message, which was directed at the people of Lebanon.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel last Oct. 8, a day after Hamas Palestinian militants attacked southern Israel from Gaza. Hezbollah cited solidarity with Hamas.

Some 60,000 Israeli citizens in the country’s north have been forced to leave their homes, while Israel’s stated objective is to make its northern areas safe from Hezbollah rocket fire and allow those displaced residents to return.

“Israel has a right to defend itself. Israel also has a right to win. And Israel will win,” Netanyahu said.

He urged Lebanon to “take back your country” and return it to a path of peace and prosperity and take advantage of an opportunity that hasn’t existed in decades.

“If you don’t, Hezbollah will continue to try to fight Israel from densely populated areas at your expense. It doesn’t care if Lebanon is dragged into a wider war,” he added. “Christians, Druze, Muslims — Sunnis and Shiites — all of you are suffering because of Hezbollah’s futile war against Israel.

“Don’t let these terrorists destroy your future any more than they’ve already done,” Netanyahu added. “You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Jerusalem:

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday that it appears that the replacement of dead Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been eliminated.

Hashem Safieddine, a top Hezbollah official was widely expected to succeed Nasrallah.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Beirut/Jerusalem:

The potential successor to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been out of contact since Friday, a Lebanese security source told Reuters on Saturday, after an Israeli airstrike that is reported to have targeted him.

In its campaign against the Iran-backed Lebanese group, Israel carried out a large strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs late on Thursday that Axios cited three Israeli officials as saying targeted Hashem Safieddine in an underground bunker.

The Lebanese security source and two other Lebanese security sources said that ongoing Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburb – known as Dahiyeh – since Friday have kept rescue workers from scouring the site of the attack.

Hezbollah has made no comment so far on Safieddine since the attack.

Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said on Friday the military was still assessing the Thursday night airstrikes, which he said targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.

The loss of Nasrallah’s rumoured successor would be yet another blow to Hezbollah and its patron Iran. Israeli strikes across the region in the past year, sharply accelerated in the past few weeks, have decimated Hezbollah’s leadership.

Israel expanded its conflict in Lebanon on Saturday with its first strike in the northern city of Tripoli, a Lebanese security official said, after more bombs hit Beirut suburbs and Israeli troops launched raids in the south.

Israel has begun an intense bombing campaign in Lebanon and sent troops across the border in recent weeks after nearly a year of exchanging fire with Hezbollah. Fighting had previously been mostly limited to the Israel-Lebanon border area, taking place in parallel to Israel’s year-old war in Gaza against Palestinian group Hamas.

Israel says it aims to allow the safe return of tens of thousands of citizens to their homes in northern Israel, bombarded by Hezbollah since Oct.8 last year.

The Israeli attacks have eliminated much of Hezbollah’s senior military leadership, including Secretary General Nasrallah in an air attack on Sept. 27.

The Israeli assault has also killed hundreds of ordinary Lebanese, including rescue workers, Lebanese officials say, and forced 1.2 million people – almost a quarter of the population – to flee their homes.

The Lebanese security official told Reuters that Saturday’s strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in Tripoli killed a member of Hamas, his wife and two children. Media affiliated with the Palestinian group also said the strike killed a leader of its armed wing.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike on Tripoli, a Sunni Muslim-majority port city that its warplanes also targeted during a 2006 war with Hezbollah.

Israel has meanwhile staged nightly bombardment of Dahiyeh, once a bustling and densely populated area of Beirut and a stronghold for Hezbollah.

On Saturday, smoke billowed over Dahiyeh, large parts of which have been reduced to rubble sending residents fleeing to other parts of Beirut or of Lebanon.

In northern Israel, air raid sirens sent people running for their shelters amid rocket fire from Lebanon.

ISRAEL WEIGHS OPTIONS FOR IRAN

The violence comes as the anniversary approaches of Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and in which about 250 were taken as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and displaced nearly all of the enclave’s population of 2.3 million.

Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas, and which has lost key commanders of its elite Revolutionary Guards Corps to Israeli air strikes in Syria this year, launched a salvo of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday. The strikes did little damage.

Israel has been weighing options in its response to Iran’s attack.

Oil prices have risen on the possibility of an attack on Iran’s oil facilities as Israel pursues its goals of pushing back Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and eliminating their Hamas allies in Gaza.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday urged Israel to consider alternatives to striking Iranian oil fields, adding that he thinks Israel has not yet concluded how to respond to Iran.

Israeli news website Ynet reported that the top U.S. general for the Middle East, Army General Michael Kurilla, is headed for Israel in the coming day. Israeli and U.S. officials were not immediately reachable for comment.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)