Israel brings fight to Beirut, still assessing whether Hezbollah leader is dead

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Israel brought its fight with Hezbollah to the doorstep of Beirut, with a series of overnight attacks on the city’s southern suburbs following a massive airstrike aimed at killing the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli officials were still assessing whether Nasrallah had been killed in the strike but felt it was unlikely he had survived, people familiar with the matter said.

Other leaders of the militant group and members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also were present at the site, other people familiar with the matter said. Smoke hung over much of the city’s south as dawn broke Saturday, with narrow columns rising up from the impact sites as residents got their first look at the results of the bombardment. Images broadcast live by local media showed scenes of destruction in the area’s residential and commercial streets, with burned-out cars, debris strewn across roads and fires still raging.

Other areas of the city were unusually full with residents of southern neighborhoods who fled their homes overnight after Israel warned them to evacuate ahead of the wave of bombings that followed the strike at Nasrallah. That attack flattened part of a neighborhood in an attempt to kill the cleric who has led the group for three decades and built it into a fearsome foe. Israel’s military said Hezbollah’s main headquarters was hidden under the buildings.