BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike last year while inside the militant group's war operations room, according to new details Sunday disclosed by a senior Hezbollah official.
A series of Israeli airstrikes flattened several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sept. 27, 2024, killing Nasrallah. The Lebanese Health Ministry said six people died. According to news reports, Nasrallah and other senior officials were meeting underground.
The assassination of Nasrallah, who had led Hezbollah for 32 years, turned months of low-level strikes between Israel and the militants into all-out war that battered much of southern and eastern Lebanon for two months until a U.S.-brokered ceasefire took effect Nov. 27.
“His Eminence (Hassan Nasrallah) used to lead the battle and war from this location,” top Hezbollah security official Wafiq Safa told a news conference Sunday near near the site where Nasrallah was killed. He said Nasrallah died in the war operations room. He did not offer other details.
Lebanese media had reported that Safa was a target of Israeli airstrikes in central Beirut before the ceasefire but appeared unscathed.
During the first phase of the ceasefire, Hezbollah is supposed to move its fighters, weapons and infrastructure away from southern Lebanon north of the Litani River, while Israeli troops that invaded southern Lebanon need to withdraw all within 60 days. Lebanese army soldiers are to deploy in large numbers and alongside United Nations peacekeepers be the sole armed presence in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon and Hezbollah have been critical of ongoing Israeli strikes and overflights across the country and for only withdrawing from two of dozens of Lebanese villages it controls. Israel says that the Lebanese military has not done its share in dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure.
Hezbollah’s current leader Naim Kassem in a televised address Saturday warned that its fighters could strike Israel if its troops don’t leave the south by the end of the month.
Meanwhile, Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz echoed similar sentiments should Hezbollah's militants not head north of the Litani River and their infrastructure remain intact.
“If this condition is not met, there will be no agreement, and Israel will be forced to act on its own to ensure the safe return of the residents of (Israel’s) north to their homes,” he said.
Safa said that Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who negotiated the ceasefire deal with Washington, told Hezbollah that the government will meet with U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein soon. “And in light of what happens, then there will be a position,” said Safa.
Hochstein had led the shuttle diplomacy efforts to reach the fragile truce.
A woman holds up a poster of the slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during a ceremony marking death anniversary of the late commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020, at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
DOHA, Qatar (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he was not surprised that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be a no-show for anticipated peace talks with Ukraine in Turkey this week.
Trump had pressed for Putin and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet in Istanbul. He brushed off Putin’s apparent decision to not take part in the expected talks.
“I didn’t think it was possible for Putin to go if I’m not there,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters as he took part in a business roundtable with executives in Doha on the third day of his visit to the Middle East.
Trump earlier this week floated potentially attending himself. The U.S. president, however, noted on Thursday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was already in the country for meetings with NATO counterparts. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, also plans to be in Istanbul on Friday for the anticipated Russia-Ukraine talks.
The push for direct talks between Zelenskyy and Putin comes amid a flurry of negotiations aimed at producing a ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
Putin was first to propose restarting direct peace talks Thursday with Ukraine in the Turkish city that straddles Asia and Europe. Zelenskyy challenged the Kremlin leader to meet in Turkey in person.
But the Kremlin has said its delegation at the talks will be led by Putin’s aide, Vladimir Medinsky, and include three other officials. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Zelenskyy will only sit down with the Russian leader.
Later Thursday, Trump will visit a U.S. installation in Qatar at the center of American involvement in the Middle East. He has used his four-day visit to Gulf states to reject the “interventionism” of America’s past in the region.
Trump will address troops at Qatar’s al-Udeid Air Base, which was a major staging ground during the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The president has held up Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar as models for economic development in a region plagued by conflict. He has urged Qatari officials during his visit to use their influence to entice Iran to come to terms with his administration on a deal to curb its nuclear program.
Trump says progress has been made in the talks but warned a “violent step” could be coming if a deal is not reached.
“Iran has sort of agreed to the terms: They’re not going to make, I call it, in a friendly way, nuclear dust," Trump said at the business roundtable. "We’re not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran.”
After his address to U.S. troops, he will travel to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates for the final leg of his Mideast tour. He will visit the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, the country’s largest mosque. The UAE’s founder, Sheikh Zayed, is buried in the mosque’s main courtyard.
Trump will also be hosted for a state visit in the evening by UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the Qasr Al Watan palace.
Trump earlier this week met with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and announced plans to ease sanctions on the war-torn country. The U.S. has deployed more than 1,000 troops in Syria for years to suppress a return of the Islamic State group.
Trump heaped praise on al-Sharaa — who was tied to al-Qaida and joined insurgents battling U.S. forces in Iraq before entering the Syrian civil war — after the two met in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. The president called al-Sharaa a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.”
It was a stark contrast from earlier years, when Al-Sharaa was imprisoned by U.S. troops in Iraq. Until December, there was a $10 million U.S. bounty for his arrest.
Trump said that the opinions of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were big factors in his decision to lift sanctions on Syria.
“President Erdogan called me and said, ”Is there any way you could do that? Because if you don’t do that, they don’t have a chance,'" Trump said. “So, I did it.”
The Qatari base Trump is visiting houses some 8,000 U.S. troops, down from about 10,000 at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The gas-rich Gulf country has spent some $8 billion over two decades in developing the base, built on a flat stretch of desert about 20 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of Qatar’s capital, Doha. The base was once considered so sensitive that American military officers would say only that it was somewhere “in southwest Asia.”
Trump said he and the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, would also see a demonstration of American air capability, as the U.S. leader looks to boost defense exports to the region.
“You’re buying a lot of that equipment actually,” Trump said Wednesday when he and Sheikh Tamim signed a series of bilateral and business agreements between the two countries. “And I think we’re going to see some of it in action tomorrow at the — we won’t call it an air fair, but its going to be sort of an air fair. We’re going to be showing a display that’s going to be incredible. They have the latest and the greatest of our planes and just about everything else.”
Madhani reported from Dubai. Associated Press writer Gabe Levin in Dubai contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani stand during the U.S. national anthem at a state dinner at Lusail Palace in Doha, Qatar, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani welcomes President Donald Trump during an official welcoming ceremony at the Amiri Diwan in Doha, Qatar, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
