Hezbollah yesterday was to hold a funeral for its top military chief and other members of the militant group, a day after Israel killed them with a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Haytham Ali Tabatabai is the most senior Hezbollah commander to be killed by Israel since a November 2024 ceasefire sought to end more than a year of hostilities between the two sides.
Tabatabai’s assassination comes as Israel has escalated its attacks on Lebanon, with the US increasing its pressure on the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah.
Photo: Reuters
The group called on its supporters to attend the mass funeral for its “great leader” Tabatabai, which was to take place in the southern suburbs, a densely populated area where it holds sway.
The Israeli military on Sunday said that it had “eliminated the terrorist Haytham Ali Tabatabai, Hezbollah’s chief of general staff.”
The group announced the death of Tabatabai and four other members in the attack.
Hezbollah said Tabatabai assumed the role of military leader after the most recent war with Israel, which saw the group suffer heavy losses, including the killings of its senior leaders.
Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanon despite the truce, usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah members and infrastructure to stop the group from rearming.
Hezbollah was to pull its forces north of the Litani River, about 30km north of the border with Israel and have its military infrastructure there dismantled, according to the agreement.
Under a government-approved plan, the Lebanese army is to dismantle Hezbollah military infrastructure south of the river by the end of the year, before tackling the rest of the nation.
Hezbollah has strongly rejected the move.
After the assassination, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would “not allow Hezbollah to rebuild its power” and called on the Lebanese government to “fulfill its commitment to disarm Hezbollah.”
A source close to Hezbollah said on condition of anonymity that there are currently “two opinions within the group — those who wish to respond to the assassination and those who want to refrain from doing so — but the leadership tends to adopt the utmost forms of diplomacy at the present stage.”
The group’s choices now seem limited. Not only was it weakened by the last war with Israel, it also lost its supply route through Syria with the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December last year.
In addition to disarmament, Washington is also demanding that Beirut dry up the group’s funding from Iran, which slammed Sunday’s “cowardly” assassination.
“Hezbollah’s options are very limited,” Atlantic Council researcher Nicholas Blanford said, as “its support base is clamoring for revenge, but if Hezbollah responds directly ... Israel will strike back very hard, and no one in Lebanon will thank Hezbollah for that.”
Blanford said the strike was the biggest blow to Hezbollah since the ceasefire “because of [Tabatabai’s] seniority and the fact that it demonstrates the Israelis can still locate and target senior officials despite whatever protective measures Hezbollah is undertaking” after the war.
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