Israel Kills Hezbollah Leader in Major Blow to Militia Group
(Bloomberg) -- Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an air strike on Lebanon’s capital Beirut, dealing a massive blow to the group and its sponsor Iran after days of intense attacks.
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Hezbollah confirmed the death of Nasrallah, 64, after an earlier statement by the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday. As questions swirled about how Hezbollah would respond, the group vowed to maintain the fight against Israel and reminded fighters of their pledge of loyalty, a stance echoed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“The resistance forces will determine the fate of this region with the honorable Hezbollah leading the way,” he said in a post on X. Lebanon will make Israel “regret its actions,” he added, an indication Tehran may not be planning a direct response.
Live blog: Israel Says It Killed Hezbollah Leader Nasrallah
Hezbollah began striking Israel from Lebanon on Oct. 8, a day after the ongoing Israel-Hamas war erupted in Gaza. A near-daily exchange of cross-border missile and drone strikes was largely contained until earlier this month, when Israel began a huge bombardment of large parts of Lebanon.
More than 1,000 people have been killed since Sept. 16, with thousands more wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, alongside some of Hezbollah’s most senior commanders.
Israel targeted Nasrallah and other top members with an attack on Hezbollah’s headquarters on Friday night. The IDF claimed the killing of a senior intelligence official from the group in a further assault Saturday, when bombing in Beirut continued alongside rocket fire on northern Israel by Hezbollah.
Israel said its escalation is necessary because diplomatic efforts by Western powers had failed to stop Hezbollah’s strikes. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who ordered the strike after a defiant speech to the United Nations on Friday, said it was part of a strategy to allow Israelis to return to areas near the Lebanese border and to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages.
“Eliminating Nasrallah is a necessary condition for achieving the goals we have set: returning the residents of the north safely to their homes, and changing the balance of power in the region for years,” Netanyahu said Saturday evening in a televised statement after he returned to Israel from New York. “In the coming days, we will face significant challenges.”
The US, France and Arab countries have been trying to deescalate the situation in recent days and prevent an Israeli ground offensive on southern Lebanon, which they fear could trigger a region-wide war. They announced a proposal for a three-week cease-fire on Wednesday. In a speech to the annual UN General Assembly in New York on Friday, Netanyahu said Israel would keep hitting Hezbollah.
“As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice and Israel has every right to remove this threat,” he said. “We will continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met.”
President Joe Biden said Saturday the US is committed to defending Israel, while reiterating calls for a cease-fire both in Lebanon and Gaza. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an end to the “cycle of violence.”
Israel is prepared to send troops into Lebanon — and has amassed many on the border — but has yet to make that decision. Many analysts have warned of the risk of getting forces bogged down in a ground invasion, while the toll on Lebanon is likely to be huge after years of economic turmoil. The United Nations said more than 50,000 people have fled to Syria this week as a result of the Israeli strikes.
Nasrallah’s most likely successor is widely viewed as Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of the former leader who has been head of Hezbollah’s executive council since 1992. Born in Lebanon in 1964, Safieddine was named as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US State Department in 2017.
Nasrallah started leading Hezbollah in the early 1990s and was close to Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, becoming integral to Tehran’s network of proxy forces in the Middle East. Hezbollah is considered the crown jewel in what’s often referred to as Iran’s “axis of resistance” against Israel and US forces in the region, which also includes Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen.
Nasrallah had been in hiding since 2006, when Israel and Hezbollah fought a devastating 34-day war. He has faced opposition among Lebanese who accused him of tying their country’s fate to Iran, which supplies Hezbollah — also a political party — with funding, training and weaponry.
Hezbollah, like Hamas, is considered a terrorist organization by the US and has vowed to destroy Israel. Hezbollah is the more powerful, with tens of thousands of fighters and missiles at its disposal.
Israel’s generals have in recent weeks increasingly turned their attention to the northern front. While the war in Gaza continues and truce talks remain stalled, the intensity of fighting has eased while Hamas has suffered heavy losses. That has allowed Israel to focus more on Hezbollah.
“The conflict with Hezbollah is far from over,” said Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies and a former Israeli military official. “The organization remains a powerful adversary threatening Israel from Lebanon. Even if Nasrallah is eliminated, many of its leaders, commanders and tens of thousands of militants remain active.”
Strikes Continue
Iran has said the recent assaults on Hezbollah won’t be unanswered, but there’s been no indication of a repeat of when Tehran directly attacked Israel in April, firing hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones, almost all of which were intercepted.
Masoud Pezeshkian, elected Iran’s president in July, spoke at the UN earlier this week and while he criticized Israel, he said he wanted to improve relations with the West with the aim of easing economic sanctions on his country.
Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 11 people died in strikes Friday — including those which killed Nasrallah — with many more buried under rubble. The country’s media said six buildings in the densely populated Haret Hreik neighborhood were leveled, and footage showed rescue workers pulling children from the debris. TV showed substantial damage to parts of the city.
--With assistance from Omar Tamo and Arsalan Shahla.
(Updates with Netanyahu comments starting in seventh paragraph.)
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