Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday (October 5, 2024) slammed French President Emmanuel Macron for calling for a halt to arms supplies to Israel, which is fighting wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

“As Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran, all civilised countries should be standing firmly by Israel’s side. Yet, President Macron and other Western leaders are now calling for arms embargoes against Israel. Shame on them,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office. 

Mr. Netanyahu said Israel was fighting a war on several fronts against groups backed by arch-foe Iran. 

“Is Iran imposing an arms embargo on Hezbollah, on the Huthis, on Hamas and on its other proxies? Of course not,” he said. All three groups are backed by Tehran and form part of its “axis of resistance” against Israel. 

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Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on September 28, 2024 in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

In just over a week, intensified Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed seven high-ranking commanders and officials from the powerful Hezbollah militant group, including the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

The move left Lebanon and much of the Mideast in shock as Israeli officials celebrated major military and intelligence breakthroughs.

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Hezbollah had opened a front to support its ally Hamas in the Gaza Strip a day after the Palestinian group’s surprise attack into southern Israel.

The recent strikes in Lebanon and the assassination of Mr. Nasrallah are a significant escalation in the war in the Middle East, this time between Israel and Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s most powerful military and political force now finds itself trying to recuperate from severe blows, having lost key members who have been part of Hezbollah since its establishment in the early 1980s.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah

Chief among them was Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in a series of airstrikes that leveled several buildings in southern Beirut. Others were lesser-known in the outside world but still key to Hezbollah’s operations.

Since 1992, Mr. Nasrallah had led the group through several wars with Israel and oversaw the party’s transformation into a powerful player in Lebanon. Hezbollah entered Lebanon’s political arena while also taking part in regional conflicts that made it the most powerful paramilitary force. After Syria’s uprising in 2011 spiraled into civil war, Hezbollah played a pivotal role in keeping Syrian President Bashar Assad in power. Under Mr. Nasrallah, Hezbollah also helped develop the capabilities of fellow Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq and Yemen.

Mr. Nasrallah is a divisive figure in Lebanon, with his supporters hailing him for ending Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000 and his opponents decrying him for the group’s weapons stockpile and making unilateral decisions that they say serve an agenda for Tehran and allies.

Nabil Kaouk

Nabil Kaouk, who was killed in an airstrike on Saturday (September 28, 2024), was the deputy head of Hezbollah’s Central Council. He joined the militant group in its early days in the 1980s. Kaouk also served as Hezbollah’s military commander in south Lebanon from 1995 until 2010. He made several media appearances and gave speeches to supporters, including at funerals for killed Hezbollah militants. He had been seen as a potential successor to Mr. Nasrallah.

Ibrahim Akil

Ibrahim Akil was a top commander and led Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces, which Israel has been trying to push further away from its border with Lebanon. He was also a member of its highest military body, the Jihad Council, and for years had been on the United States’ wanted list. The U.S. State Department says Mr. Akil was part of the group that carried out the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and orchestrated the taking of German and American hostages.

Ahmad Wehbe

Ahmad Wehbe was a commander of the Radwan Forces and played a crucial role in developing the group since its formation almost two decades ago. He was killed alongside Mr. Akil in an airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs that struck and leveled a building.

Ali Karaki 

Ali Karaki led Hezbollah’s southern front, playing a key role in the ongoing conflict. The U.S. described him as a significant figure in the militant group’s leadership. Little is known about Karaki, who was killed alongside Mr. Nasrallah.

Mohammad Surour

Mohammad Surour was the head of Hezbollah’s drone unit, which was used for the first time in this current conflict with Israel. Under his leadership, Hezbollah launched exploding and reconnaissance drones deep into Israel, penetrating its defense systems, which had mostly focused on the group’s rockets and missiles.

Ibrahim Kobeisi

Ibrahim Kobeisi led Hezbollah’s missile unit. The Israeli military says Kobeissi planned the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli soldiers at the northern border in 2000, whose bodies were returned in a prisoner swap with Hezbollah four years later.

Even in the months before the recent escalation of the war with Hezbollah, Israel’s military had targeted top commanders, most notably Fuad Shukur in late July, hours before an explosion in Iran widely blamed on Israel killed the leader of the Palestinian Hamas militant group Ismail Haniyeh. The U.S. accuses Fuad Shukur of orchestrating the 1983 bombing in Beirut that killed 241 American servicemen.

Leaders of key units in the south, Jawad Tawil, Taleb Abdullah, and Mohammad Nasser, who over several decades became instrumental members of Hezbollah’s military activity, were all assassinated.

Mr. Nasrallah’s second-in-command, Naim Kassem, is the most senior member of the organization. Mr. Kassem has been Hezbollah’s deputy leader since 1991 and is among its founding members. On several occasions, local news networks were quick to assume that an Israeli strike in southern Beirut may have targeted Kassem.

Mr. Kassem is the only top official of the militant group who has conducted interviews with local and international media in the ongoing conflict. The deputy leader appears to be involved in various aspects of the militant group, both in top political and security matters, but also in matters related to Hezbollah’s theocratic and charity initiatives to the Shia Muslim community in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Hashim Safieddine, who heads Hezbollah’s central council, is tipped to be Mr. Nasrallah’s successor. Mr. Safieddine is a cousin of the late Hezbollah leader, and his son is married to the daughter of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was slain in a U.S. drone strike in 2020. Like Mr. Nasrallah, Mr. Safieddine joined Hezbollah early on and similarly wears a black turban.

Talal Hamieh and Abu Ali Reda are the two remaining top commanders from Hezbollah who are alive and apparently on the Israeli military’s crosshairs.

Israel conducted a wave of airstrikes on the south of Lebanon’s capital Beirut on Friday (September 27, 2024) that it said targeted Hezbollah’s headquarters, moments after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep fighting the militant group.

The strikes, heard across the Mediterranean city, sent huge clouds of smoke soaring above its densely populated southern suburbs, the main bastion of Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has been fighting Israeli troops along the Lebanon border since its Palestinian ally Hamas staged its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.

Israel shifted its focus from the war in Gaza to Lebanon this week, unleashing air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds around the country that have killed hundreds and forced 118,000 more to flee their homes.

While Friday’s (September 27, 2024) strikes on south Beirut were not this week’s first, they were by far the fiercest.

“Oh my God, what strikes. I felt like the building was going to collapse on top of me,” said Abir Hammoud, a teacher in her 40s who lives in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Vowing to secure its border with Lebanon, Israel has since Monday (September 23, 2024) pounded Hezbollah strongholds chiefly in the east and south of the country, defying calls from world leaders and aid agencies to halt the violence.

Nasrallah ‘fine’

A source close to Hezbollah said the strikes levelled six buildings, and according to a preliminary toll, two people were killed and 76 wounded.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the strike targeted “the central headquarters” of Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of the city.

Israeli television networks reported that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strike, though the source close to Hezbollah said he was “fine”.

The bombing came moments after Mr. Netanyahu concluded his address to U.N. General Assembly delegates in New York, in which he vowed to keep up strikes against Hezbollah and fight “until victory” against Hamas.

Earlier this month, Mr. Netanyahu said Israel would fight Hezbollah until thousands of Israelis displaced by the cross-border fighting could return to their homes.

“As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safe,” Mr. Netanyahu told the U.N. General Assembly, adding that operations against the Iran-backed militant group will “continue until we meet our objectives.”

Earlier on Friday (September 27, 2024), Hezbollah fired rockets into the northern Israeli city of Tiberias, saying it was responding to “savage” strikes on Lebanese towns and villages.

‘Deadliest in a generation’

The U.N. has repeatedly condemned the sharp escalation of violence between Israel and Lebanon.

“We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning,” the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, Imran Riza, said.

In Israel, too, many were weary of the violence.

“It is incredibly exhausting to be in this situation. We don’t really know what’s going to happen, there’s talk of a ground offensive or a major operation,” said Lital Shmuelovich, a physiotherapy student.

In New York, Mr. Netanyahu also addressed the war in Gaza, saying that Israel’s military would continue to fight Hamas until the Islamist movement was crushed.

“If Hamas stays in power, it will regroup… and attack Israel again and again and again… So Hamas has got to go,” Mr. Netanyahu said, vowing to fight the group until “total victory”.

Diplomats have said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to halting the fighting in Lebanon and bringing the region back from the brink of all-out war.

But despite months of mediation efforts, a Gaza ceasefire remains elusive.

Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,534 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

‘Change the rules’

The Lebanon violence has raised fears of wider turmoil in the Middle East, with Iran-backed militants across the region vowing to keep up their fight with Israel.

Mr. Netanyahu took aim at Iran in his U.N. General Assembly address, saying: “I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you.”

He added: “There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that’s true of the entire Middle East.”

Analysts have said Iran would try to resist being dragged into the conflict.

But following the Beirut strikes, Iran’s Embassy in Lebanon said: “This reprehensible crime… represents a dangerous escalation that changes the rules of the game.”

Israel “will receive the appropriate punishment”, it added in a post on X.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, on September 27, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iran on Friday (September 27, 2024) that Israel will strike if it is hit first and warned that his country can reach any part of the cleric-run state as he vowed to fight on in Gaza.

“I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you,” Mr. Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly.

“There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that’s true of the entire Middle East.”

Delegates, including from Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, exited the room as Mr. Netanyahu took the rostrum for his address amid a mix of cheers and angry yells.

“After I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight,” Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of his speech.

Ahead of his speech, protesters gathered outside Netanyahu’s hotel in New York to demand an end to the violence in Gaza and Lebanon.

‘Deadliest period’

On Wednesday (September 25, 2024), the United States, France and other allies unveiled a 21-day truce proposal, after President Joe Biden and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The White House has said that the call for a ceasefire had been “coordinated” with Israel, but Netanyahu’s office on Thursday (September 26, 2024) said that the Prime Minister has not responded to the proposal.

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“It is an American-French proposal, which the prime minister has not even responded to,” said a statement from Netanyahu’s office, adding that he had ordered the army “to continue the fighting with full force.”

Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in a deadly exchange of cross-border fire since the Iran-backed group’s Palestinian ally, Hamas, attacked Israel on October 7.

Mr. Netanyahu vowed Friday that “Hamas has got to go” and would have no role in the reconstruction of Gaza as he vowed to fight until “total victory.”

Since Monday, Israel has shifted its focus from Gaza to its northern front with Lebanon where heavy bombing has killed 700 people and sparked an exodus of around 118,000 people.

Mr. Netanyahu said Israel would continue Lebanon strikes “until we meet our objectives.”

The U.N. said Friday (September 27, 2024) that a “catastrophic” intensification of Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah militants had left Lebanon facing its “deadliest period… in a generation.”

The Israeli strikes have brought the overall death toll in Lebanon to more than 1,500 people killed in nearly a year of clashes, according to Lebanese authorities.

That toll surpasses the 1,200 mostly civilians killed during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, which also killed around 160 people in Israel, most of them soldiers.