JERUSALEM/BEIRUT — Israel killed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a powerful airstrike in Beirut, dealing a heavy blow to the Iran-backed group as it reels from an escalating campaign of Israeli attacks.

The Israeli military said on Saturday it had eliminated Mr. Nasrallah in the strike on the group’s central command headquarters in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday. Hezbollah confirmed he had been killed, without saying how.

Mr. Nasrallah’s death is a major blow to both Hezbollah and Iran, removing an influential ally who helped build Hezbollah into the linchpin of Tehran’s network of allied groups in the Arab world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the killing of Nasrallah as a necessary step toward “changing the balance of power in the region for years to come.”

“Nasrallah was not a terrorist, he was the terrorist,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement, warning of challenging days ahead.

US President Joseph R. Biden described Nasrallah’s death as a measure of justice for what he called his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese, and said the US fully supported Israel’s right to self-defense.

But when asked if an Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon was inevitable, Biden told reporters on Saturday: “It’s time for a ceasefire.”

A senior member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan, was also killed in the Israeli attacks in Beirut on Friday, Iranian media reported.

Sources told Reuters that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been moved to a secure location in Iran following Nasrallah’s killing.

Iran later called for a United Nations (UN) Security Council meeting on Israel’s actions in Lebanon and elsewhere in the region. It also warned against any attacks on its diplomatic facilities and representatives.

“Iran will not hesitate to exercise its inherent rights under international law to take every measure in defense of its vital national and security interests,” Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, said in a letter to the 15-member council.

Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed 33 people and wounded 195 others on Saturday, the Lebanese Health ministry said.

The strikes continued on Beirut’s southern suburbs throughout the early evening on Saturday, according to a Reuters live broadcast, sending large clouds of smoke over the city.

One Israeli strike hit an industrial area 500 meters (yards) from Beirut airport buildings, a security source told Reuters. The airport continued to operate normally, according to Middle East Airlines boss Mohammad al-Hout.

More than 1,000 people have been killed and more than 6,000 wounded as a result of Israeli attacks in the past two weeks, the health ministry said, and about one million Lebanese have been displaced by the strikes, including hundreds of thousands since Friday, Nasser Yassin, the minister coordinating the government’s crisis response, told Reuters on Saturday.

Israel said it killed a senior Hezbollah intelligence official in a strike on southern Beirut, naming him as Hassan Khalil Yassin. Hezbollah has made no mention of this.

In Israel, air raid sirens sounded across the center of the country — including Tel Aviv —and large bangs were heard after a missile was fired from Yemen and intercepted, according to the Israeli military.

A projectile fired from Lebanon crashed in the occupied West Bank, sparking fires, the Israeli military said. There were no casualties, according to the Israeli ambulance service.

Hezbollah said in a statement that it would continue its battle against Israel “in support of Gaza and Palestine, and in defense of Lebanon and its steadfast and honorable people.”

Iran’s Khamenei said Nasrallah’s death would be avenged and his path in fighting Israel would be pursued by other militants.

Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his country was facing the threat of danger, without mentioning the death of Nasrallah. His office later announced three days of mourning for the Hezbollah chief.

Hezbollah and Israel have been fighting a conflict in parallel with Israel’s war against the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza since Hamas’ attack on Israel last Oct. 7, in a cross-border confrontation that has sharply escalated in recent days.

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV aired verses from the Koran after Mr. Nasrallah’s death was announced. Bursts of gunfire were heard in Beirut and Lebanon’s army deployed tanks in the city center, according to Reuters witnesses.

The Israeli military said Nasrallah was eliminated in a “targeted strike” on the group’s underground headquarters below a residential building in Dahiyeh – a Hezbollah-controlled southern suburb of Beirut. It said he was killed along with senior Hezbollah official Ali Karaki and other commanders.

Mr. Nasrallah’s death is by far the largest blow in a traumatic fortnight for Hezbollah, starting with a deadly strike on thousands of communications devices used by its members.

Days later, Israel significantly ramped up airstrikes in Lebanon, killing several top Hezbollah commanders and hundreds of other people across wide areas of the country. 

SUCCESSION
Many Hezbollah supporters were in disbelief on Saturday.

“He was leading us. He was everything to us. We were under his wings,” one supporter, Zahraa, told Reuters tearfully by phone from a school where she had been displaced to overnight.

Hezbollah gave no immediate indication of who might succeed Nasrallah. Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine has long been regarded as heir apparent. The group has not issued any statement on Safieddine’s status or that of any other Hezbollah leaders —apart from Nasrallah — since the attack.

Hezbollah continued its cross-border rocket fire on Saturday, setting off sirens and sending residents running for shelter deep inside Israel. Israeli missile defenses blocked some of them and there was no immediate report of injuries.

The escalation has increased fears the conflict could spin out of control, potentially drawing in Iran, Hezbollah’s principal backer, as well as the United States.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel’s war was not with the Lebanese people, calling Nasrallah the “murderer of thousands of Israelis and foreign citizens.” Mr. Gallant held talks late on Saturday about possibly expanding Israel’s military offensive on its northern front, his office said.

Mr. Biden, who had no advance warning of the strike that killed Mr. Nasrallah, said the US aimed to de-escalate the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon through diplomatic means.

Hezbollah has said it would cease fire only when Israel’s Gaza offensive ends. Hamas and other allies of Hezbollah issued statements mourning his death.

Russia said it strongly condemned Mr. Nasrallah’s killing and urged Israel to stop hostilities in Lebanon.

LEBANON ASKS IRANIAN PLANE NOT TO LAND
Residents fled Dahiyeh, seeking shelter in downtown Beirut and other parts of the city.

“Yesterday’s strikes were unbelievable. We had fled before and then went back to our homes, but then the bombing got more and more intense, so we came here, waiting for Netanyahu to stop the bombing,” said Dalal Daher, speaking near Beirut’s Martyrs Square, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel says it has been attacking Hezbollah with the aim of allowing tens of thousands of residents evacuated from northern Israel to return home.

Lebanon’s Transport ministry asked an Iranian plane not to enter Lebanese airspace after Israel warned air traffic control at the Beirut airport that it would use “force” if it landed, a ministry source told Reuters. The source said it was not clear what was on the plane, adding: “The priority is people.”

Late on Friday, Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israeli air force planes would not allow “hostile flights with weapons to land” there. — Reuters

TOKYO — Japan’s incoming prime minister (PM), Shigeru Ishiba, said on Sunday the country’s monetary policy must remain accommodative as a trend, signaling the need to keep borrowing costs low to underpin a fragile economic recovery.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Ishiba, who had been a vocal critic of the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) past aggressive monetary easing, was taking a more dovish line with his remarks.

“It’s something the Bank of Japan, which is mandated to achieve price stability, will decide while working closely with the government,” Mr. Ishiba told public broadcaster NHK, when asked about further interest rate increases by the central bank.

“From the government’s standpoint, monetary policy must remain accommodative as a trend given current economic conditions,” he said.

On fiscal policy, Ishiba said he will aim to compile a package of measures at an early date to cushion the economic blow from rising living costs, with a focus on helping low-income households.

Ishiba, a former defense minister, is set to become prime minister on Tuesday after winning the presidency of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Friday.

After his victory, Ishiba said monetary policy would broadly remain loose but suggested he would not push back against further increases in still near-zero interest rates.

The BoJ ended negative interest rates in March and raised short-term borrowing costs to 0.25% in July in a landmark shift away from a decade-long, radical stimulus program.

BoJ Governor Kazuo Ueda has signaled a readiness to raise rates further if Japan makes progress towards durably achieving the bank’s inflation 2% target, as the board projects it will.

Ishiba told Reuters in August that the BoJ was on the “right policy track” by ending negative rates and endorsed further normalization of monetary policy, saying it could boost industrial competitiveness. But in an interview this month, he said Japan must prioritize making a full exit from deflation and warned of weak signs in consumption.

The yen, which fell on Friday on news that a dovish rival would join Mr. Ishiba in a run-off for the LDP leadership, rebounded on his victory. — Reuters

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump on Saturday deployed some of his harshest rhetoric against immigrants who have crossed the border illegally and committed crimes, especially against young women, while he also escalated his personal insults against Kamala Harris.

In the battleground state of Wisconsin, Trump called Democratic Vice-President Harris, who on Friday visited the US-Mexico border for the first time in her 2024 presidential campaign, “mentally impaired” and “mentally disabled.”

The Republican presidential candidate was flanked by posters of immigrants in the US illegally who have been arrested for murder and other violent crimes, and banners saying, “End Migrant Crime” and “Deport Illegals Now.”

His speech was unusually devoted almost entirely to undocumented immigrants. He called those who had committed violent crime “monsters,” “stone-cold killers” and “vile animals.”

Mr. Trump is locked in a close race with Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 election. Immigration and the southern border are one of the top issues for voters, according to opinion polls.

Sarafina Chitika, a Harris spokesperson, said after Mr. Trump’s speech: “He’s got nothing ‘inspiring’ to offer the American people, just darkness.”

The former president blamed Ms. Harris and Democratic President Joseph R. Biden for allowing undocumented immigrants into the US, accusing some migrants of wanting to “rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill the people of the United States of America.”

At one point Mr. Trump admitted: “This is a dark speech.”

Mr. Trump’s speech was in the small Wisconsin city of Prairie du Chien, where a Venezuelan in the US illegally was detained in September for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman and attacking her daughter.

Some 7 million migrants have been arrested crossing the US-Mexico border illegally during Biden’s administration, according to government data, a record high number that has fueled criticism of Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden from Mr. Trump and fellow Republicans.

In her visit to the border on Friday, Harris outlined her plans to fix “our broken immigration system” while accusing Trump of “fanning the flames of fear and division” over the impact of immigrants on American life.

Ms. Harris also called for tighter asylum restrictions and vowed to make a “top priority” of stopping fentanyl from entering the US.

Mr. Trump also repeated his false claim that his 2020 election defeat to Mr. Biden was fraudulent. If reelected, and “if allowed,” Mr. Trump said he would prosecute people he blames for his loss then.

Studies generally find there is no evidence immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans and critics say Mr. Trump’s rhetoric reinforces racist tropes.

Mr. Trump typically focuses on young women allegedly killed by Hispanic assailants to drive home that message, eschewing cases that involve male victims.

Mr. Trump’s opponents accuse him of cynically exploiting grieving families to fuel his narrative that foreign-born, often Hispanic, arrivals are part of an invading army.

But some of the families of the victims have welcomed Mr. Trump’s focus on the issue of violent crime and the death toll of teenagers caused by the opioid drug fentanyl, much of which crosses into the US over the southern border.

Several parents who had lost children to attacks by immigrants in the US illegally, or to fentanyl, spoke in support of him before Trump’s remarks on Saturday. — Reuters