ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Following the confirmation of Hassan Nasrallah’s death in an Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday, all eyes turn to Hashim Safieddine, widely regarded as the Lebanese Hezbollah’s number two and Nasrallah’s expected heir.

Born in 1964 in southern Lebanon’s Deir Qanoun En Nahr, Safieddine is Nasrallah’s maternal cousin and head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, which oversees the group's political, social, and educational activities. He is also in charge of the group’s daily affairs, managing its institutions and finances.

In 2008, Safieddine was elected Nasrallah’s successor as secretary-general of Hezbollah during the group’s general meeting, according to Iranian media, but he has reportedly been groomed for the position since 1994.

His son Ridha is married to Zainab Soleimani, daughter of Qasem Soleimani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) influential late commander.

The US State Department designated Safieddine as a terrorist in 2017, saying he posed “a serious risk of committing acts of terrorism that threaten the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

The Israeli military announced on Saturday that Nasrallah was “eliminated” alongside other Hezbollah commanders in a strike on the group’s central headquarters “which was located underground embedded under a residential building” in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Hezbollah confirmed his killing hours later.

Safieddine was reportedly also targeted in Friday’s strikes, but sources within Hezbollah told Reuters that he had survived.

Nasrallah was one of the founding members of Hezbollah, formed in 1982 to fight the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He became the group’s chief in 1992 after his predecessor Abbas al-Musawi was assassinated in an Israeli strike.