As Hezbollah and their supporters mourn the death of Nasrallah, his cousin Hassan is poised to be the next leader of the organisation. But who is he?

Prior to his promotion, Safieddine was the leader of Hezbollah’s executive branch, which controls Hezbollah’s political, social, and educational activities. Hezbollah, like Hamas and several other military organisations, has both a political AND military branch. The political branch runs for election in Lebanon.

Hashem, much like many other Shia militants, studied theology in Najaf(Iraq) and Qum(Iran) with his cousin Nasrallah. He was recalled by Nasrallah in 1994 and has since been taught and shaped to become the organisations next leader. He was promoted as heir to Nasrallah in 2008. Many believe he will rule much the same as his cousin due to their similar appearance, shared speech impediment and the fact that Hashem was groomed for this role by Nasrallah for decades.

This leadership shall be put to the test as Israel invades Southern Lebanon with ground forces and Iran carries out a major missile attack. Whilst supporters of the group insist the change in leadership won’t effect their coherence, Israel does seemed to have planned this well. The pager attack, the assassination, the invasion. Three major successive blows to Hezbollah.