Israel says top Hezbollah official was killed in Beirut airstrike earlier this month

The Israeli military said Tuesday that a top Hezbollah official who had been widely expected to be the group's next leader was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Beirut in early October.

There was no immediate confirmation from the militant group about the fate of Hashem Safieddine, a powerful cleric who was expected to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, one of the group's founders.

Safieddine was killed in an Israeli airstrike in early October in a strike that also killed 25 other Hezbollah leaders, according to Israel, whose airstrikes in southern Lebanon in recent months have killed many of Hezbollah's top leaders, leaving the group in disarray.

Last week, Israel killed the top leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, during a battle in Gaza.

The Beirut suburb where Safieddine was killed was pummelled by a series of fresh airstrikes on Tuesday, including one that levelled a building in the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut that it said housed Hezbollah facilities.

The collapse sent smoke and debris into the air a few hundred metres from where a spokesperson for the militant group had just briefed journalists about a weekend drone attack that damaged the Israeli prime minister's house.

The airstrike came 40 minutes after Israel issued an evacuation warning for two buildings in the area that it said were used by Hezbollah. The Hezbollah news conference nearby was cut short, and an Associated Press photographer captured an image of a missile heading toward the building moments before it was destroyed.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Hezbollah's chief spokesperson, Mohammed Afif, said the group was behind the Saturday drone attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's home in the coastal town of Caesarea. He hinted that it might attempt future strikes on Netanyahu's home. Israel has said neither the prime minister nor his wife were home at the time of the attack. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Tuesday with Netanyahu as part of his 11th visit to the region since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. Blinken is trying to revive efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.

Blinken stressed the need for Israel to do more to help increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians, and said Israel should "capitalize" on Sinwar's death as an opportunity to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of hostages there. Netanyahu's office called his meeting with Blinken, which lasted more than two hours, "friendly and productive."

Blinken landed hours after Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets into central Israel, setting off air raid sirens in populated areas and at its international airport, but causing no apparent damage or injuries. 

An Israeli airstrike late Monday in Beirut destroyed several buildings across the street from the country's largest public hospital, killing 18 people and wounding at least 60 others, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. The Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah target, without elaborating, and said it had not targeted the hospital itself.

Associated Press reporters visited the Rafik Hariri University Hospital on Tuesday. They saw broken windows in the hospital's pharmacy and dialysis centre, which was full of patients at the time.