Here is what we know about the slain commanders.
- Nasrallah: Hezbollah chief -
On Friday, an Israeli air strike on the Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut killed Hassan Nasrallah, the group's leader for 32 years.
His death was confirmed a day later by Hezbollah.
Despite leading a life in hiding to avoid assassination, the 64-year-old Nasrallah had wielded great power in Lebanon.
He also enjoyed cult status among his Shiite Muslim supporters, although he was rarely seen in public for security reasons.
"The point of security measures is that movement be kept secret, but that doesn't stop me from moving around and seeing what is happening," Nasrallah told Lebanon's pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar newspaper in a 2004 interview.
Nasrallah was elected secretary-general of Hezbollah in 1992, aged just 32, after an Israeli helicopter gunship killed his predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi.
Israel said on Saturday that Nasrallah was one of its "greatest enemies", and that his death made the world "a safer place".
- Shukr: right-hand man -
A strike on July 30 killed Fuad Shukr, one of the group's top military commander.
Shukr, who was in his early 60s, played a key role in cross-border drone and rocket attacks on Israeli forces, according to a source close to Hezbollah.
The two sides have traded near-daily fire across the frontier since Hezbollah ally Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel.
Shukr helped found Hezbollah during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war and became a key adviser to Nasrallah.
Shukr was Hezbollah's most senior military commander, and the leader said he had been in daily contact with him since October.
Israel blamed Shukr for a July rocket attack on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights that killed 12 children in a Druze Arab town. Hezbollah denied responsibility.
In 2017, the US Treasury offered a $5 million reward for information on Shukr, saying he had "a central role" in the deadly 1983 bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.
- Aqil: US bounty -
A strike on September 20 killed Ibrahim Aqil, head of Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force, along with 15 other commanders.
According to Lebanese officials, the attack killed a total of 55 people, many of them civilians.
A source close to Hezbollah described Aqil as the second-in-command in the group's forces after Shukr.
The Radwan Force is Hezbollah's most formidable offensive unit and its fighters are trained in cross-border infiltration, a source close to the group told AFP.
The United States said Aqil was a member of Hezbollah's Jihad Council, the movement's highest military body.
The US Treasury said he was a "principal member" of the Islamic Jihad Organisation -- a Hezbollah-linked group behind the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people and an attack on the US Marine Corps barracks in the Lebanese capital the same year that killed 241 US soldiers.
- Kobeissi: missiles expert -
On September 25, a strike killed Ibrahim Mohammed Kobeissi, who commanded several military units including a guided missiles unit.
"Kobeissi was an important source of knowledge in the field of missiles and had close ties with senior Hezbollah military leaders," the Israeli military said.
Kobeissi joined Hezbollah in 1982 and rose through the ranks of the group's forces.
One of the units he led was tasked with manning operations in part of the south of Lebanon, which borders Israel.
- Srur: drone chief -
A strike on September 26 killed Mohammed Srur, the head of Hezbollah's drone unit since 2020.
Srur studied mathematics and was among a number of top advisers sent by Hezbollah to Yemen to train the country's Huthi rebels, who are also backed by Iran, a source close to Hezbollah said.
He had also played a key role in Hezbollah's intervention since 2013 in Syria's civil war in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government.
Other commanders killed in recent strikes include Muhammad Ali Ismail, Ali Karake, Wissam Tawil and Mohammed Naameh Nasser.
Justice or assassination: leaders react to Israel's killing of Nasrallah
Paris (AFP) Sept 29, 2024 - World leaders warned of potential repercussions on Saturday after Lebanese militant group Hezbollah announced its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike on a suburb of Beirut.
The killing of the Iran-backed group's chief has intensified fears of all-out war in the Middle East.
US President Joe Biden welcomed "a measure of justice".
- Iran -
First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref warned Israel that Nasrallah's death would "bring about their destruction", Iran's ISNA news agency quoted him as saying.
The foreign ministry of Iran, which finances and arms Hezbollah, said Nasrallah's work will continue after his death. "His sacred goal will be realised in the liberation of Quds (Jerusalem), God willing," spokesman Nasser Kanani posted on X.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced five days of public mourning.
- United States -
Biden said Nasrallah's death was "a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese civilians".
Washington supports Israel's right to defend itself against "Iranian-supported terrorist groups" and the "defence posture" of US forces in the region would be "further enhanced", Biden added in a statement.
Vice President Kamala Harris said Nasrallah was "a terrorist with American blood on his hands" and said she would "always support Israel's right to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis."
Leading Republicans in the House of Representatives also welcomed the end of a "reign of bloodshed, oppression, and terror" by "one of the most brutal terrorists on the planet".
- Russia -
Russia's foreign ministry said "we decisively condemn the latest political murder carried out by Israel" and urged it to "immediately cease military action" in Lebanon.
Israel would "bear full responsibility" for the "tragic" consequences the killing could bring to the region, the ministry added in a statement.
- Germany -
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told ARD television that the killing "threatens destabilisation for the whole of Lebanon", which "is in no way in Israel's security interest".
- Canada -
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described Nasrallah as "the leader of a terrorist organization that attacked and killed innocent civilians, causing immense suffering across the region".
But he called for more to be done to protect civilians in the conflict, adding: "We urge calm and restraint during this critical time."
- Britain -
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a post on X that he had spoken with the Lebanese premier.
"We agreed on the need for an immediate ceasefire to bring an end to the bloodshed. A diplomatic solution is the only way to restore security and stability for the Lebanese and Israeli people," he said.
- France -
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot demanded Israel "immediately stop its strikes in Lebanon" and said it was opposed to any ground operation in the country.
France also "calls on other actors, notably Hezbollah and Iran, to abstain from any action that could lead to additional destabilisation and regional conflagration", the foreign ministry said in a statement.
- United Nations -
UN chief Antonio Guterres said he was "gravely concerned by the dramatic escalation of events in Beirut in the last 24 hours".
- Hamas -
Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel sparked the devastating war in Gaza that drew in fellow Iran-backed groups including Hezbollah, called Nasrallah's killing "a cowardly terrorist act".
"We condemn in the strongest terms this barbaric Zionist aggression and targeting of residential buildings," Hamas said in a statement.
- Palestinian Authority -
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas offered his "deep condolences" to Lebanon for the deaths of Nasrallah and civilians, who "fell as a result of the brutal Israeli aggression", according to a statement from his office.
- Huthis -
The Iran-backed Yemeni rebels, who have been firing on ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Hamas, said in a statement that Nasrallah's killing "will increase the flame of sacrifice, the heat of enthusiasm, the strength of resolve" against Israel, with their leader vowing Nasrallah's death "will not be in vain".
- Turkey -
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country maintains diplomatic relations with Israel but who has been a sharp critic of its offensive in Gaza, said on X that Lebanon was being subjected to a "genocide", without referring directly to Nasrallah.
- Cuba -
In a post on X, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel called the killing a "cowardly targeted assassination" that "seriously threatens regional and global peace and security, for which Israel bears full responsibility with the complicity of the United States."
- Argentina -
Argentine President Javier Milei reposted on X a message from a member of his council of economic advisers, David Epstein, who hailed the killing.
"Israel eliminated one of the greatest contemporary murderers. Responsible, among others, for the cowardly attacks in #ARG," it said. "Today the world is a little freer".
- Saudi Arabia -
Saudi foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told the UN that "this escalation will have... negative repercussions for the entire region".
"We call upon all parties to show wisdom and to show restraint in order to avoid a true war from breaking out in the region."
- Venezuela -
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro expressed solidarity with Nasrallah and Lebanon.
"They want to justify it, but to assassinate him, they attacked buildings, housing estates and killed hundreds of people. There's a word for this: crime."
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