Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, is dead, Israel says.
Israel's military announced on Saturday evening (AEST) that Nasrallah had been killed in , Beirut, on Friday.
"Hassan Nasrallah is dead," military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani wrote on X.
Captain David Avraham, another military spokesman, also confirmed to the AFP news agency that the Hezbollah chief had been "eliminated" following strikes Friday on Beirut.
A source close to the Hezbollah meanwhile told AFP on condition of anonymity that contact with Nasrallah had been lost since Friday evening.
Contact with him was lost for two days and he was rumoured to have been killed during Israel's last war with Hezbollah in 2006, the source said, adding that he later re-emerged unscathed.
There has been no official confirmation from Hezbollah about Nasrallah's fate since the Israeli military's announcement.
Israel claims to have killed other Hezbollah commanders
An Israeli military statement said the strikes also killed Ali Karake, who the statement identified as commander of Hezbollah's southern front, and an unspecified number of other Hezbollah commanders.
"The strike was conducted while Hezbollah's senior chain of command were operating from the headquarters and advancing terrorist activities against the citizens of the State of Israel," the statement said.
"During Hassan Nasrallah's 32-year reign as the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, he was responsible for the murder of many Israeli civilians and soldiers, and the planning and execution of thousands of terrorist activities," the statement said.
"He was responsible for directing and executing terrorist attacks around the world in which civilians of various nationalities were murdered. Nasrallah was the central decision-maker and the strategic leader of the organisation."
'We will know how to reach them'
The Israeli army's chief of staff Herzi Halevi said the military had not emptied its "toolbox" with the targeted killing of Lebanon's Hezbollah chief Nasrallah.
"This is not the end of our toolbox. The message is simple, anyone who threatens the citizens of Israel — we will know how to reach them," Halevi said in a statement, according to the Reuters news agency.
Hezbollah began firing on Israel one day after a 7 October attack by Hamas-led militants on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
Militants killed 1,200 people and took about 250 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's military said Hezbollah's leader had been killed in a strike on Beirut on Friday. Source: Getty / Houssam Shbaro/ Anadolu
Israel has over the past days shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed more than 700 people and displaced around 118,000.
