On September 27, Hassan Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for more than three decades, was assassinated by Israeli airstrikes on Beirut.
| Photo Credit: AFP

When Hassan Nasrallah, then 32, became the Secretary-General of Hezbollah in 1992, after the assassination of the group’s leader and co-founder Abbas al-Musawi, one of the first things he did was to order rocket attacks into northern Israel. A car bomb hit the Israeli embassy in Turkiye, killing a security officer, while a suicide bomber blew himself up at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 29 people.

Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to push the Palestine Liberation Organisation out of the country. It did so, but the war led to the rise of Hezbollah, which turned out to be a greater security challenge than the PLO. In 1992, when Israel killed Mr. Musawi, what it wanted to do was deal a lethal blow to Hezbollah. But Mr. Musawi’s successor sent a message in unmistakable terms that he would double down on Hezbollah’s resistance.

The rocket attacks and embassy bombings were just the beginning of Hezbollah’s violent resistance under Mr. Nasrallah, who would turn the organisation, which was largely a guerrilla militia when he took over, into a multifaceted movement, with a military wing that is more powerful than the Lebanese Army. On September 27, Mr. Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for more than three decades, was assassinated by Israeli airstrikes on Beirut.

Mr. Nasrallah “has joined his fellow martyrs”, Hezbollah said in a statement on Saturday (September 28, 2024), confirming his death. Martyrdom is a central ideological and religious theme of Shia political activism. It is the supreme sacrifice. In September 1997, after Mr. Nasrallah’s eldest son Muhammad Hadi was killed in an Israeli ambush near Mlikh, a mountain village in southern Lebanon, he said, “I am proud to be the father of one of the martyrs”.

Born and raised in a working-class suburb of Beirut, Mr. Nasrallah undertook his religious studies in Baalbek in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and then in Iran. When the Iranian revolution took place, which gave a new meaning to Shia political Islam and radicalised youths across the region, Mr. Nasrallah was 19. He saw the power of religion and martyrdom. He witnessed the devastation brought by the civil war in Lebanon. He also saw the aggression of Israel in 1982, which had hit the marginalised Shia community the hardest. He was initially part of the Amal party, a Shia movement. When the radical sections of Amal split from the party and formed Hezbollah, Mr. Nasrallah joined them.

After he assumed leadership of the movement, his focus was on resistance against Israel’s continuing occupation of southern Lebanon, where they had carved a buffer called ‘security zone’. Hezbollah, with rocket attacks and ambushes, had turned the security zone into an ‘insecurity zone’. Amid growing violence, in 2000, 18 years after it started the Lebanon invasion, Israel decided to withdraw troops from the south. Mr. Nasrallah termed it “the first Arab victory against the Zionist entity”. In 2006, a cross-border raid by Hezbollah triggered the wrath of Israel, which launched a ground invasion and massive air strikes. The war went on for a month, causing great damage to Hezbollah. But Israel, despite its firepower, failed to defeat Hezbollah or deter its rockets from southern Lebanon. When Israel withdrew from Lebanon after reaching a ceasefire with Hezbollah, the group claimed another victory.

Another pivotal moment of Mr. Nasrallah’s leadership was the civil war in Syria, an ally, where the regime of Bashar al-Assad was threatened by a multitude of rebel and jihadist groups, including the Islamic State. “If Syria falls in the hands of America, Israel and the takfiris (a reference to IS and al-Qaeda jihadists), the people of our region will go into a dark period,” Nasrallah said in 2013, confirming that Hezbollah was fighting in Syria alongside the troops of the Assad regime. Hezbollah, along with other Iran-backed Shia militias and Russia, played a crucial role in turning around the Syrian civil war.

The “obliteration” of Israel and the liberation of Jerusalem were two of the main declared objectives of Hezbollah. When Israel launched its retaliatory war on Gaza following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack in Israel, Hezbollah started firing rockets into Israel “in solidarity with the Palestinians”.

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

Ever since, Hezbollah has been fighting a limited war, turning northern Israel into a no-man’s area. But earlier this month, Israel decided to escalate the war dramatically. Within days, Israel launched back-to-back attacks without letting Hezbollah recover from the effects. It triggered pager and walkie-talkie explosions first and then launched waves of massive airstrikes, taking out Hezbollah’s senior commanders.

On September 27, by assassinating Mr. Nasrallah, Israel dealt the heaviest blow to Hezbollah and its ally, Iran. Mr. Nasrallah led the group through wars. And he was killed in a war. Israel might be hoping that Hezbollah would take time to recover from its punches. Hezbollah says it will continue its “holy war against the enemy”. West Asia will remain on edge.

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.

While Israel is pounding Beirut with airstrikes, European, Arab and Islamic nations have launched an initiative to strengthen support for a Palestinian state and its institutions, and prepare for a future after the war in Gaza and escalating conflict in Lebanon, Norway’s foreign minister said on Friday (September 27, 2024).

Espen Barth Eide, Norway’s foreign minister, told The Associated Press, “there is a growing consensus in the international community from Western countries, from Arab countries, from the Global South, that we need to establish a Palestinian Authority, a Palestinian government, a Palestinian state — and the Palestinian state has to be recognized.”- AP

An undated handout photo released by the Hezbollah military media press office on September 21, 2024, shows Hezbollah top commander Ibrahim Aqil, who was killed on September 20 in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Ibrahim Aqil, the Hezbollah operations commander killed in an Israeli strike on Friday (September 20, 2024), had a $7 million bounty on his head for two 1983 Beirut truck bombings that killed more than 300 people at the American embassy and a U.S. Marines barracks.

Two security sources in Lebanon confirmed the veteran fighter was killed in an airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs during a meeting of the elite Radwan unit of the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group.

Aqil, who has also used the aliases Tahsin and Abdelqader, was the second member of Hezbollah’s top military body, the Jihad Council, to be killed in two months after an Israeli strike in the same area targeted Fuad Shukr in July.

Israel escalated its attacks on the group this week after months of border fighting triggered by the conflict in Gaza that began on Oct. 7 with a deadly raid and hostage-taking in Israel by Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas.

Like Shukr, Aqil is a veteran of Hezbollah, which was founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the early 1980s to battle Israeli forces that had invaded and occupied Lebanon.

Born in a village in Lebanon’s Beqaa valley sometime around 1960, Aqil had joined the other big Lebanese Shia political movement, Amal, before switching to Hezbollah as a founding member, according to a security source.

The United States accuses him of a role in the Beirut truck bombings at the American embassy in April 1983, which killed 63 people, and a U.S. Marine barracks six months later that killed 241 people.

It further accused him of directing the abduction of American and German hostages in Lebanon and listed him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2019, putting the $7 million bounty on his head.

Referring to the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks and other attacks on Western interests in Lebanon in the 1980s, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a 2022 interview with an Arabic broadcaster that they were carried out by small groups not linked to Hezbollah.

Aqil’s cohort of founding Hezbollah operatives helped turn the group from a shadowy militia into Lebanon’s most powerful military and political organisation, pushing Israel from its occupation of the south in 2000 and fighting it again in 2006.

When Shukr was killed in July, it was seen as the heaviest blow to its command structure since the 2008 assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, remembered by Hezbollah as a legendary commander but by Israel and the United States as a terrorist.

Aqil, whose bounty was set by the United States at an even higher value than that of Shukr’s, may prove a similar blow.