WASHINGTON – Hassan Nasrallah, the revered and reviled longtime leader of Hezbollah, was killed Friday in an Israeli airstrike, the Israel Defense Forces said.
Nasrallah, “the leader of the terrorist organization Hezbollah and one of its founders, was eliminated by the IDF,” the Israeli army said in a statement on Saturday.
“Following specific intelligence,” the statement said, warplanes “carried out a targeted strike against the central headquarters of the Hezbollah terrorist organization, which was located under a residential building in the Dahieh neighborhood of Beirut “.
Hezbollah confirmed Nasrallah’s death, saying it would continue its battle against Israel “in support of Gaza and Palestine, and in defense of Lebanon and its loyal and honorable people.”
An underground meeting and a massive crater
The beheading attack on Israel’s most powerful neighboring enemy was a political earthquake for the region, threatening an armed response against Israeli and US targets from Iran and its proxies in Iraq, Syria and Yemen .
“It’s huge,” said Mohamad Bazzi, director of the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University. “It’s a big blow for Hezbollah. It’s a big blow for Iran.”
Nasrallah was one of the Middle East’s most important leaders, commanding tens of thousands of fighters and armed with missiles supplied by the Shiite Islamist movement’s patron, Iran. Hezbollah governs southern Lebanon and its nearly one million inhabitants, independent of the weak Lebanese government.
“The strike was carried out while Hezbollah’s senior chain of command was operating from headquarters and carrying out terrorist activities against citizens of the State of Israel,” the Israeli statement said.
Friday’s airstrike on Dahiyeh shook Beirut. A security source in Lebanon told Reuters the attack – a rapid succession of extremely powerful explosions – left a crater more than 20 meters deep. It is not clear how many people were killed.
It was followed on Saturday by new airstrikes on Dahiyeh and other areas of Lebanon. Huge explosions lit up the night sky and more strikes hit the area Saturday morning. Smoke rose above the city.
The death of the militant movement’s longtime leader came after a week of Israeli attacks that Tel Aviv said were aimed at neutralizing Hezbollah’s military capabilities and allowing 60,000 residents of northern Israel to return to their homes evacuated due to months of rocket fire from the Lebanese border.
More: Netanyahu vows to continue Hezbollah attacks, slams Israel critics in UN speech
Hezbollah has been firing rockets at Israel since Hamas’s rampage in southern Israel on October 7 and Israel’s ongoing invasion of the coastal enclave.
More than 1,500 people were killed in Lebanon last week and more than 90,000 displaced, in addition to 100,000 forced to flee since October.
A key figure in the “Axis of Resistance”
Among his supporters, Nasrallah has been praised for standing up to Israel and defying the United States. To his enemies, he was the leader of a terrorist organization and a proxy for Iran’s Shiite Islamist theocracy in its struggle for influence in the Middle East.
“There’s no doubt that he’s a particularly important character,” Bazzi told USA TODAY. “He’s very charismatic, he’s an excellent speaker.”
Yet Bazzi said, “Its star has fallen in the Middle East since Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian civil war,” when Hezbollah fighters were key to the survival of Bashar al Assad’s brutal government.
Nasrallah’s regional influence was on display during nearly a year of conflict sparked by the Gaza War, as Hezbollah entered the fray by firing into Israel from southern Lebanon in support of its ally Palestinian Hamas, and that Yemeni and Iraqi groups followed suit, operating under the command of Hamas. the umbrella of an “Axis of Resistance” led by Iran.
“We are facing a great battle,” Nasrallah said in an Aug. 1 speech at the funeral of Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fouad Shukr, who was killed in an Israeli strike.
More: Israel shoots down first Hezbollah missile targeting Tel Aviv as group says it targeted spy agency
Pager Explosions and Change of Fortune
Yet when thousands of Hezbollah members were injured and dozens more killed, when their pagers and walkie-talkies exploded in an apparent Israeli attack last week, the battle began to turn against his group .
In response to attacks on Hezbollah’s communications network, in a speech on September 19, Nasrallah pledged to punish Israel.
“It is a judgment that will come, its nature, its extent, how and where? This is certainly what we will keep to ourselves and in the narrowest circle, even within ourselves,” he said .
He has not given a broadcast speech since.
More: US, EU and nine other countries call for 21-day ceasefire on Israel-Lebanon border
Meanwhile, Israel has significantly stepped up its attacks, killing several senior Hezbollah commanders in targeted strikes and unleashing a massive bombardment in Hezbollah-controlled areas of Lebanon that killed hundreds.
Israel said Friday’s strike also killed Ali Karki, whom it identified as the commander of Hezbollah’s southern front, and other leaders.
Iran on Friday accused Israel of using American-made “bunker buster” bombs in the attack.
“Serious security flaws”
“There have clearly been serious security violations at Hezbollah,” Bazzi said. “This raises the question of how and why he was moving at this point.”
“It’s serious, debilitating in some ways.” Yet Bazzi added: “They are also constituted – Nasrallah himself has argued – as an organization that will endure as the leaders are killed. »
Recognized even by his enemies as a charismatic orator, Nasrallah’s speeches were followed by friends and enemies alike.
Wearing the black turban of a sayyed, or descendant of the prophet Mohammed, Nasrallah used his speeches to rally Hezbollah’s base but also to issue carefully calibrated threats, often wagging his finger.
He became secretary general of Hezbollah in 1992 at the age of 35, the public face of a once-obscure group founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982 to fight Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
Israel killed his predecessor, Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi, in a helicopter attack. Nasrallah led Hezbollah when his guerrillas finally drove Israeli forces out of southern Lebanon in 2000, ending 18 years of occupation.
Hezbollah and Israel fought to a standstill in a 2006 war.
(This story has been updated with new information.)
Contributor: Reuters
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah dies in Israeli airstrike
