After “Hezbollah” officially confirmed, on Saturday, the “martyrdom” of its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli raid on the southern suburb of Beirut, speculation intensified regarding the identity of his successor in the party's leadership.

According to sources within the party, to Anadolu Agency's reporter, Hashim Safi al-Din is the most likely candidate to succeed Nasrallah.
On Friday evening, Israeli fighter jets of the “F-35” model conducted an “intense and unprecedented” airstrike on Hezbollah's central headquarters in the Harat Hreik area of the southern suburb of Beirut; this resulted in Nasrallah's death.

Who is Hashim Safi al-Din?
Hashim Safi al-Din holds the position of Chairman of the Executive Council of Hezbollah and is considered the second man in Hezbollah after Hassan Nasrallah, to the extent that he has been described in media circles for years as Nasrallah's “shadow.”

Safi al-Din was born in 1964 in the town of Deir Qanoun al-Nahr in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon.

Not much information is available about him, but it is known that he has been part of the “Hezbollah” structure since the group's establishment in 1982.

In the 1980s, Safi al-Din traveled to Qom in Iran to join his cousin Hassan Nasrallah there in studying religious sciences.

Safi al-Din has been groomed for Nasrallah's succession since 1994, when he was summoned from Qom to Beirut to head the Executive Council, which is considered the party's government, succeeding Nasrallah, who became the party's Secretary-General. At that time, he was supervised by the party's former security chief Imad Mughniyeh.

Over the course of three decades, he has handled many sensitive daily files within the party, from managing its institutions to overseeing its finances and investments both domestically and abroad, leaving strategic files in Nasrallah's hands.

Public and Political Presence
Like Nasrallah, with whom he shares many qualities, Safi al-Din is characterized by a strong public and political presence and his eloquent and fiery speeches, which are often wrapped in a strong religious tone.

In those speeches, he emphasizes his commitment to confronting Israeli aggressions and asserting a firm response toward them.

In a speech delivered on July 13, 2024, Safi al-Din said: “If our mission, as it is today, is to be in the south fighting this enemy and offering our martyrs, we are ready to sacrifice everything, and we are confident that God will grant us victory as He did in 2006.”

In another speech on the 18th of the same month, he stressed that “Lebanon is concerned with the war against the Israeli enemy without restrictions or limits.”

Safi al-Din has repeatedly confirmed, in recent times, what Nasrallah previously announced, that Hezbollah will not stop supporting the Gaza front until Israel halts its aggression on the Strip.

Close Relations with Iran
Safi al-Din has good relations with Tehran; in addition to spending years studying religious sciences at the Qom seminary, he also became related to the former commander of the Iranian Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, in 2020. His son, Reza, married Soleimani's daughter, Zainab, at that time.

In 2017, the U.S. Treasury Department announced the “listing of Safi al-Din on the terrorism list” on the grounds of his affiliation with “Hezbollah.”