The Iranian-backed terrorist organisation, Hezbollah, has confirmed that its leader Hasan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike late yesterday afternoon, along with other senior leaders of the Hezbollah organisation. In addition, the Iranian Government has said that a senior Iranian General, who was in Hezbollah headquarters at the time of the attack, was also killed.
The news about Nasrallah was confirmed by Hezbollah in a statement shortly after midday, and followed claims by Israel about Nasrallah’s fate that had earlier been denied. The French Government had also confirmed this morning that it was in possession of intelligence indicating that Nasrallah had died.
The killing of Nasrallah is the culmination – so far – of a 10 day campaign by the Israeli military against Hezbollah which began with the widespread explosion of Hezbollah communications devices, and has included the assassinations of most of the senior Hezbollah leadership in targeted strikes. The Lebanese Government says up to half a million people have been displaced in Southern Lebanon. In addition, an unknown number of civilians – a number which certainly runs to the hundreds, if not thousands – have been killed in the Israeli attacks.
The current outbreak of Israeli-Hezbollah hostilities began on October 8th last year, when Hezbollah responded to the Hamas attacks of October 7th by launching missile attacks against Israel. In the year since, 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from their homes in Northern Israel, near the Lebanese border. The Israeli military and Government says that the current campaign against Hezbollah is designed to allow those people to return to their homes by neutering the Iran-backed organisation. Hezbollah is widely seen as the “jewel in the crown” of a network of Iranian-backed terror groups across the Middle East, which include Hamas in Gaza and the Houthi Rebels in Yemen.
Hezbollah was founded in 1982 by Shia Clerics in Lebanon in opposition to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and amid popular outrage at the Sabra and Shatila massacre, in which 3,500 mainly Shia Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were alleged to have been killed by Israeli troops, prompting UN condemnation and a series of unsuccessful legal actions against the then-Israeli commander, later Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. Sharon nevertheless lost his job as defence Minister after the invasion and the incident, both of which were widely seen as disastrous for Israel, not least because of the support that followed for organisations like Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has dominated Lebanese politics in recent years, with Nasrallah widely seen as the only figure in the country with the power to declare war or make peace. He had been the leader of Hezbollah since 1992 and was widely credited with building it into the largest non state military force on the planet – though scrutiny will now be put on the effectiveness of the organisation given the sheer depth and breath of the apparent Israeli intelligence penetration of its ranks.
Across the Middle East, there appeared to be a mixed reaction to Nasrallah’s death – with footage of widespread celebration in Sunni Muslim areas, matched with outpourings of grief and anger in Shia areas. Under Nasrallah’s leadership, Hezbollah had widely intervened in Sunni/Shia conflicts, most prominently in the Syrian Civil War, where its fighters brutally intervened to suppress opposition to Iranian-backed President Bashar Al-Assad.
In Israel, there was widespread celebration at the demise of a man responsible for dozens of terrorist attacks and kidnappings over the past thirty years, including attacks on Jews around the world. In 1994, Hezbollah under Nasrallah’s leadership was responsible for the AMIA Synagogue bombing in Argentina, which killed 85 Jewish people and injured 300 more. The 2006 war in Lebanon also followed the kidnapping and torture by Hezbollah of two Israeli soldiers on Nasrallah’s orders. Nasrallah was later quoted as saying that had he known that the Israeli response would have been so severe, he would not have ordered the raid.