Hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon have been displaced from the ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, a Lebanese cabinet minister spearheading the country’s emergency response said.

Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said the government estimates that about 250,000 people have left their homes and taken refuge in government-run shelters and informal ones. However, he told the Associated Press the total number is about “four times as many directly affected and/or displaced outside the shelters.”

Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, a potential successor to his slain cousin Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, is one of Hezbollah's most prominent figures and has deep religious and family ties to group's patron Iran.

Safieddine bears a striking resemblance to his charismatic maternal cousin Nasrallah but is several years his junior, aged in his late 50s or early 60s.

The German government said Saturday that the killing of long-time Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a wave of Israeli strikes on Lebanon could have negative repercussions for Israel's own security.

In an interview to German TV channel ARD, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the "highly dangerous" situation after Nasrallah's death "threatens destabilization for the whole of Lebanon," adding: "That is in no way in Israel's security interest."

Middle East nations and Hezbollah's allies in the Tehran-aligned "Axis of Resistance" reacted on Saturday to the killing of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah after the Lebanon-based group confirmed their leader's death in Israeli strikes.

Military officials in Israel announced on Saturday morning that Nasrallah, who headed Hezbollah for more than three decades, died in bombardment targeting the group's headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut Friday night.

Russia on Saturday strongly condemned Israel for killing Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and urged it to immediately cease military action in Lebanon.

"We decisively condemn the latest political murder carried out by Israel," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement, adding: "We once again insistently urge Israel to immediately cease military action."

Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said Saturday that the killing of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in an air strike in the Lebanese capital will bring about Israel's "destruction."

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned on Saturday what he called an Israeli "massacre" in Lebanon after strikes that Israel said killed the Hezbollah leader.

Lebanon's health ministry gave a preliminary toll of six dead and 91 wounded from the latest strikes on Beirut's densely populated southern suburbs since Friday, the fiercest to hit Hezbollah's stronghold since Israel and the group last went to war in 2006.

The Israeli military said on Saturday the killing of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, one of its "greatest enemies", made the world safer but the group's remaining senior members would still be targeted.

"Nasrallah was one of the greatest enemies of the state of Israel of all time... His elimination makes the world a safer place," military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said at a televised briefing.

A prominent general in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard died in an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's southern suburbs, Iranian media reported Saturday.

The killing of Gen. Abbas Nilforushan marks the latest casualty suffered by Iran as the nearly yearlong Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip teeters on the edge of becoming a regional conflict. His death further ratchets up pressure on Iran to respond, even as Tehran has signaled in recent months that it wants to negotiate with the West over sanctions crushing its economy.

Iran's foreign ministry said Saturday the path of Hezbollah's chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah will continue despite his killing in an Israeli air strike after a year of cross-border clashes between the two sides.