Beirut, Lebanon – The Hezbollah confirmed on Saturday that its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was killed.

The group said in a statement it would continue its battle against Israel “in support of Gaza and Palestine, and in defence of Lebanon and its steadfast and honourable people”.

Israel said earlier on Saturday it had killed Nasrallah in an airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs a day earlier.

Abbas Nilforushan, a senior general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was killed alongside Nasrallah in the Israeli strike on Friday, according to Iranian state media.    

Nilforushan was ‘killed in Israel’s attack on Lebanon that assassinated the Hezbollah chief’, the government-funded Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

The US has said that Nilforushan was the deputy commander of operations at IRGC. He was

involved in backing Syrian President Bashar Assad in the Syrian civil war and served in the Iran-Iraq war.  

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Muslims to help fight Israel, stating that the Hezbollah would play a major role in deciding the fate of the Middle East.