Hezbollah Chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. File
| Photo Credit: AP

The body of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed in an Israeli air strike on southern Beirut, has been recovered, a source close to the movement told AFP on Sunday (September 29, 2024).

“His body was recovered on Saturday and was placed in a shroud on Sunday after being washed,” the source said, requesting anonymity.

Also Read: Israeli airstrike hits central Beirut for the first time in nearly a year of conflict | LIVE updates

“The funeral ceremony and his burial have not yet been arranged,” the source added.

Before his death on Friday (September 27, 2024) when Israeli jets attacked Hezbollah’s heartland in the south of the Lebanese capital, Nasrallah was considered the most powerful man in the country.

For more than three decades he headed the Iran-backed movement that was Israel’s sworn enemy.

“Friday’s air strike also killed Ali Karake, the group’s top commander in southern Lebanon,” Hezbollah said on Sunday (September 29, 2024).

It has not named others who died alongside Mr. Nasrallah and Mr. Karake.

However, Israel’s military said on Sunday (September 29, 2024) that “more than 20 other terrorists of varying ranks” were also killed in the attack.

The authorities in Lebanon gave a provisional toll of six dead, but given the scale of the destruction, the number of dead is likely to be higher.

Beirut’s southern suburbs and south and east Lebanon have been subject to intense Israeli bombardment since Monday, with the country’s Health Ministry reporting more than 700 people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.

New Delhi:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday confirmed that he personally authorised the operation to eliminate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut. The 64-year-old Nasrallah was killed as Israeli strikes targeted dozens of Hezbollah sites in eastern and southern Lebanon following intense rocket fire by the group into northern Israel. Israeli jets bombarded Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut overnight, flattening several residential buildings.

Netanyahu termed Nasrallah’s death as a critical achievement in Israel’s military strategy and as a step toward restoring security along Israel’s northern borders.

Addressing his country following Nasrallah’s killing, Netanyahu said that Nasrallah had been responsible for orchestrating numerous attacks on Israelis and foreign nationals, including high-profile bombings in the 1980s. 

These attacks included the 1983 bombings in Beirut that killed 63 people at the US embassy and hundreds of US Marines and French paratroopers. Netanyahu said that “terrorist” Nasrallah’s death was vital for degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities, stating, “As long as Nasrallah was alive, he would quickly restore the capabilities we had eroded from Hezbollah.”

“We settled the score with the one responsible for the murder of countless Israelis and many citizens of other countries, including hundreds of Americans and dozens of French,” he said 

READ | Hezbollah Chief Killed In Israel Strike: “Will No Longer Terrorise The World”

The Israeli Prime Minister pointed to the elimination of Nasrallah as a turning point that would accelerate the return of northern Israeli residents who had fled due to cross-border fire and further weaken Hamas, Hezbollah’s ally in Gaza. “The more [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar sees that Hezbollah is no longer coming to save him, the greater the chances for the return of our hostages,” Netanyahu said, referring to the ongoing efforts to secure the release of Israelis captured by Hamas during its October 7 attack.

Netanyahu praised Israel’s military and intelligence agencies, including the IDF, Mossad, and Shin Bet, for executing the operation. “We are winning,” he said.

READ | Hassan Nasrallah Is Dead. This Cleric Is Now Tipped To Lead Hezbollah

Netanyahu used Nasrallah’s death as an opportunity to warn Iran. He said that Israel’s reach extends across the region, including Iran, and made clear that the killing of Nasrallah should serve as a message to Tehran and its proxies. “There is nowhere in Iran or the Middle East beyond the reach of the long arm of Israel, and today you know how true that is,” he said. “I say to the Ayatollah’s regime: whoever beat us, we will beat them.”

Concluding his message, Netanyahu called this period a “historic turning point” and reaffirmed his commitment to the safe return of displaced residents and the recovery of hostages. He ended with a pledge of unity: “We will fight together, and with God’s help, we will win together.”

“We are determined to continue to strike at our enemies, return our residents to their homes, and return all our abductees. We do not forget them for a moment,” he said. 

Supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah react as the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah addresses them through a giant screen in Beirut’s southern suburbs on August 9, 2022. Hezbollah confirmed on September 28, 2024 that its leader had been killed, after Israel said it had “eliminated” him in a strike on south Beirut a day earlier.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The story so far: It’s been almost a year since the latest Gaza war began. And now, Israel has shifted its focus towards its northern border with Lebanon. Over the past week, Israel has carried out massive bombardments in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, killing at least 700 people and displacing more than 1,00,000. Among the dead was Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary-General of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah killing in Beirut: LIVE updates

What preceded the air strikes?

The air strikes followed explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon, which hit hundreds of Hezbollah fighters. Hezbollah, in retaliation, fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, including a ballistic missile which was intercepted over Tel Aviv. The U.S. and France called for a ceasefire, but Israel quickly ruled out the proposal. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says his army will continue to fight “until meeting its objectives” in Lebanon, and achieving “total victory” against Hamas in Gaza.

What is the Hezbollah?

The Hezbollah was formed as a Shia resistance organisation in 1982, with help from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in the aftermath of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in the same year. Israel sent troops to Lebanon to force the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) out of the country. While Israel managed to force the PLO to relocate from Lebanon to Tunisia, and carved a buffer in southern Lebanon, the war led to the rise of militant Shia resistance, which turned out to be a long-term security challenge for Israel. The Shia community had historically been marginalised in Lebanon where power was divided between the Maronite Christians (for whom the Presidency was reserved) and Sunnis (Premiership). The Shias reorganised themselves under Hezbollah, which built a sprawling political, military and social network that’s deeply entrenched in Lebanon’s state and society. The group has a political party which has parliamentarians, a social wing that caters to the lower strata of society, and a powerful military unit, backed by Iran, which has fighters and short, medium and long-range missiles.

Why are Israel and Hezbollah fighting?

The raison d’etre of Hezbollah is resistance against Israel. Destruction of “the Zionist entity” has been one of the goals mentioned in Hezbollah’s manifesto. The group, which is termed a terrorist organisation by both Israel and the U.S., takes credit for forcing Israel to end its occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, 18 years after it invaded Lebanon. Last time Israel and Hezbollah fought a full-scale war was in 2006 when Israel invaded Lebanon after a Hezbollah cross-border raid. The trigger for the latest flare-up was the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed. When Israel launched its retaliatory war on Gaza, Hezbollah started firing rockets into Israel “in solidarity with the Palestinians”. In response, Israel started bombing Lebanon. Ever since, a slow-burning war continued to rage on the Israel-Lebanon border, which displaced some 70,000 Israelis from the border region. The escalation came on July 30 when Israel killed Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander, in an air strike in Beirut. Hezbollah stepped up its rocket attacks. Earlier this month, Israel said enabling the displaced citizens to go back to their homes is one of the objectives of the war. Then came the pager explosions, which were followed by air strikes.

How powerful is Hezbollah?

Israel sees Hezbollah as a mortal enemy. Hezbollah’s weapons include Fateh ballistic missiles with a range of 250 km and Sayyad surface-to-surface missiles (up to 100 km) and C-802 anti-ship missiles (120 km). It also has anti-tank missiles, artillery rockets and tens of thousands of short range rockets such as Bukan, Katyusha, Falaq and Almas. In terms of conventional might, this may not be a match for Israel. An undeclared nuclear power, Israel is the most powerful military force in West Asia, which enjoys the support and protection of the U.S., the world’s most powerful country. But Hezbollah is not a conventional force. It’s a highly armed guerrilla army with conventional weapons and asymmetric tactics, which had hurt Israel in the past. Since 2006, Hezbollah has rebuilt its weapons stocks many times more. But Hezbollah’s response to Israel’s attacks have so far been limited. Hezbollah, either by conscious decision or by limitations, chose to fire short-range rockets into Israel in response to the air strikes. But the assassination of Nasrallah, which Hezbollah has confirmed, is the heaviest blow yet. Nasrallah is credited to have built Hezbollah to what it is today.

What does Israel want?

After almost a year of fighting in Gaza, Israel has not met any of its declared objectives — the decimation of Hamas and the release of the hostages. Israeli troops have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and turned the enclave into an open refugee camp. Israel is practically stuck in the Gaza quagmire — without something that can be shown to the public as ‘victory’, Mr. Netanyahu, on whose watch the October 7 attack unfolded, can’t end the war. If he ends the war through a ceasefire deal with Hamas, his government could collapse (his far-right allies have threatened to withdraw their support). But Hezbollah says as long as the Gaza war goes on, it would fire rockets into Israel. Mr. Netanyahu can’t accept a ceasefire in Gaza, but wants to stop the Hezbollah attacks. Faced with no easy solutions, Israel decided to escalate the conflict with Hezbollah. Israel wants to degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities, and turn them away from the border region. The fire power Israel used over the past week can be comparable to Israel’s bombing of the Egyptian air force in 1967. Israel also carried out targeted air strikes at Hezbollah leaders, killing at least four commanders besides Nasrallah.

Editorial |Rogue state: On Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah

What next?

Israel’s leadership has ruled out a ceasefire on the Lebanese border. It’s not clear yet whether Israel would launch a ground invasion into Lebanon. Here, Israel faces a dilemma. Hezbollah is far more powerful than Hamas and at this point of the conflict, nobody is deterring anybody. Iran’s proxy might is not deterring Israel. Israel’s fire power is not deterring Hezbollah and the Houthis. And Hezbollah’s rockets are not deterring Israel from pounding Lebanon. This was a conflict loop, which could break into an escalatory ladder, triggering an all-out war. Then came the Nasrallah killing.

From October 7, Hezbollah was fighting a limited war needling Israel in the north but wary of escalation. But once Israel decided to escalate, it went in with full force. There cannot have been a greater provocation than the killing of the Secretary General. It is as if Israel is pushing Hezbollah to fight a larger war. The next question is what will Hezbollah (and Iran) do? Will the group fold under pressure or regroup itself and fight the Jewish state with full force? Its choice will decide whether West Asia will slide into an all-out war.

People watch the speech of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on a TV screen as they sit in a cafe in the southern suburbs of Beirut, on September 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Israeli military announced on Saturday (September 28, 2024) that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed in a strike on Beirut.

“Hassan Nasrallah is dead,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani announced on X. Military spokesman Captain David Avraham also confirmed to AFP that the Hezbollah chief had been “eliminated” following strikes on Friday (September 27, 2024) on the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Also read: Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon LIVE updates

While a source close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said on Saturday (September 28, 2024) that contact had been lost since last evening with chief Hassan Nasrallah, after Israel said it had “eliminated” him in a strike on the group’s southern Beirut bastion.

“Contact with Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been lost since Friday evening,” said the source, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. He did not confirm whether Nasrallah had been killed.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah recently his speech condemned the Israeli pager attacks that killed not just Hezbollah members but also unarmed Lebanese citizens. “There is no doubt that we have been subjected to a major security and military blow that is unprecedented in the history of the resistance and unprecedented in the history of Lebanon,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said.