Israel has said that it killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut yesterday. Information that Nasrallah was at Hezbollah’s main headquarters in Beirut arrived while Israel’s Prime Minister was addressing the UN in New York, and a decision was made to target the man who has been terrorising Israelis for more than three decades.
He was a gifted politician and leader, under whose leadership Hezbollah turned from a minor terrorist group into a large, heavily armed powerhouse
Nasrallah, 64, was born in a village in southern Lebanon and was a deeply devout Shiite Muslim. He was one of the founders of Hezbollah and became leader of the terror organisation when his predecessor was assassinated by Israel in 1992.
Nasrallah was more than an arch-terrorist. He was a gifted politician and leader, under whose leadership Hezbollah turned from a minor terrorist group into a large, heavily armed powerhouse that worked its way into Lebanese politics as a political party. Hezbollah has always been more loyal to the Islamic Republic of Iran than to Lebanon and shared their goal of establishing an Islamic republic, thereby undermining Lebanese independence and sovereignty.
Nasrallah masterminded the transformation of Hezbollah into a significant regional actor that has participated in the suppression of opposition forces, including civilians, in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere in the Middle East. The group is also responsible for major terror attacks against Jews, including the bombing of a Jewish community centre in Argentina in 1994. The organisation has relied heavily on weapons from Iran and has funded its activity by establishing a prolific international drug trade.
Israelis were not the only ones who wanted to see Nasrallah die. Videos of jubilation came from across the Middle East yesterday – Lebanon, Syria, even Iran – when news broke about the possible assassination. The US government also considers Hezbollah a significant threat.
Nasrallah famously said that Israelis are weaker than a spider’s web. Israel’s hurried withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000, without much preparation or a treaty, made Hezbollah look like the victor – the mouse that roared and defeated the country many larger Middle Eastern countries had failed to defeat over several wars.
Following the withdrawal, Hezbollah became significantly more powerful. It had tens of thousands of rockets, medium- and long-range missiles, drones, armoured vehicles, and built Hamas-style tunnels. They had been preparing for war with Israel. Their problem was that Israel had been preparing for war too – but on a much more sophisticated level.
Despite being caught unprepared by Hamas on 7 October, Israel has spent significant resources gathering as much information about Hezbollah as possible: where weapons are stored, how they get to Hezbollah, identifying key commanders and their hiding places, the organisation’s funding sources – including oil trade – and much more.
Nasrallah was wrong about Israel. He made the same mistake that Hamas made on 7 October; he went too far. For years, Israel was willing to contain limited attacks by both terror organisations. However, Hamas’s massacre caused a reaction that has brought the group to its knees.
Hezbollah has been bombing Israel for the past 11 months, with both sides wanting to avoid a full-scale war. However, Nasrallah’s refusal to reach a truce with Israel, stop the bombing, and withdraw forces from the border left Israel in a position where it could no longer live with the significant risk posed by Nasrallah’s terror empire. It had to do something major.
Israel started with a surprise attack: the pagers carried by thousands of terrorists exploded, followed by their walkie-talkies exploding the next day. These clever acts humiliated and stunned Hezbollah, knocking out many of its members. The Israel Defence Forces took advantage of the chaos and started widespread bombing of Hezbollah’s infrastructure and weapons caches, with only a limited response from the battered group.
The assassination of Nasrallah is a major strategic win for Israel. With so many of the group’s top brass now dead, it’s unknown who will become the new leader. In many ways, Nasrallah was one of a kind and irreplaceable. Israel will now want to make sure that Hezbollah cannot rebuild its power.
There’s the question of Iran. Hezbollah was Iran’s most powerful arm in the Middle East, and the leaders of both were very close. This is a huge blow for Iran’s ambitions. The question now is whether Iran wants to take the significant risk of launching a counter-attack or whether it will choose to avoid the miscalculations made by Hamas and Hezbollah and stick to a symbolic gesture.