Israel's military announced Saturday that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut the previous night, but there was no confirmation from the Lebanese armed group, AFP reports.      

"Hassan Nasrallah is dead," military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani announced on X.

A source close to the Iran-backed group told AFP on condition of anonymity that contact with Nasrallah had been lost since Friday evening.

Contact with him was lost for two days and he was rumoured to have been killed during Israel's last war with Hezbollah in 2006, the source said, adding that he later re-emerged unscathed.

There has been no official confirmation from Hezbollah about Nasrallah's fate since the Israeli military's announcement.

An Israeli military statement said the strikes also killed Ali Karake, who the statement identified as commander of Hezbollah's southern front, and an unspecified number of other Hezbollah commanders.

"The strike was conducted while Hezbollah's senior chain of command were operating from the headquarters and advancing terrorist activities against the citizens of the State of Israel," the statement said.

"He was responsible for directing and executing terrorist attacks around the world in which civilians of various nationalities were murdered. Nasrallah was the central decision-maker and the strategic leader of the organisation."

bd-pratidin/GR