Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said.
Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years.
His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since October last year.
Photo: AFP
However, Nasrallah’s killing in Hezbollah’s southern Beirut bastion known as Dahiyeh was the culmination of two weeks of unprecedented blows to the Iran-backed group either claimed by Israel or blamed on it.
“If, at this point, Hezbollah does not respond with a strategic strike using its arsenal of long-range, precision-guided missiles, one must assume they simply can’t,” said Heiko Wimmen, project director for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon at the International Crisis Group.
“Either we see an unprecedented reaction by Hezbollah… or this is total defeat,” he said.
Hezbollah has been the most powerful group in Lebanon for decades and the only one that has kept its arms after the end of the Lebanese Civil War which lasted from 1975 to 1990.
However, after nearly one year of low-intensity cross-border fighting, Israel has shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing since Monday last week has killed hundreds of people and displaced about 118,000.
This week’s air assault followed pager and walkie-talkie blasts that targeted operatives of Hezbollah, killing 39 and wounding nearly 3,000.
In the past week, Israeli strikes on southern Beirut have killed one top Hezbollah commander after the other.
Sam Heller, an analyst at the New York-based think tank Century Foundation, said a lack of deterrence after such an important leader’s killing could encourage Israel to press on even further.
In nearly a year of cross-border fighting with Israel, Hezbollah “haven’t mustered the more dramatic capabilities that most of us had assumed it held in reserve,” even as its foe intensified raids and conducted sophisticated operations, he said.
Hezbollah’s capabilities might have been “oversold” or completely obliterated by Israel, he added.
Since the 2006 war in which Hezbollah “defeated the Israelis,” the group had “maintained this long-time deterrent equation,” Heller said, adding that “now, it seems evident Hezbollah cannot protect... itself.”
Amal Saad, a Lebanese researcher of Hezbollah and lecturer at Cardiff University, said that after the enormous blow to the now leaderless group, it would need to strike a delicate balance in choosing a response.
On the one hand, Hezbollah would seek to avoid triggering an Israeli “carpet bombing campaign against Beirut or all of Lebanon,” while “at the same time raising the morale” of its supporters and fighters, she said.
Hezbollah would need to show it can protect its own people, exact revenge on Israel, but also keep the peace among Lebanon’s diverse religious communities, she added.
Shiite Lebanese, which constitute the group’s support base, are among the tens of thousands displaced from Lebanon’s south, east and Dahiyeh by Israel’s bombardment — seeking shelter in areas where other religious communities live.
Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy director of research at the Carnegie Middle East Center, said Hezbollah had been “paralyzed” by its recent reverses, but warned against writing the group off for good.
“It requires new leadership, a system of communications and to restore its narrative and speak to its support base,” he said.
However, “it will be quite difficult to imagine the organization wither away that quickly,” he added.
Saad said that Hezbollah as an underground armed group was “designed to absorb shocks like this,” citing the killing of top Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh killed in a 2008 Damascus car bombing blamed on Israel.
“When the dust settles Hezbollah is not a one-man show,” she said.
Nasrallah “is not a mythological figure. He’s a person,” she added.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
REVENGE: Trump said he had the support of the Syrian government for the strikes, which took place in response to an Islamic State attack on US soldiers last week The US launched large-scale airstrikes on more than 70 targets across Syria, the Pentagon said on Friday, fulfilling US President Donald Trump’s vow to strike back after the killing of two US soldiers. “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.” The US Central Command said that fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapon sites. “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned
Seven wild Asiatic elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern state of Assam early yesterday, local authorities said. The train driver spotted the herd of about 100 elephants and used the emergency brakes, but the train still hit some of the animals, Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told reporters. Five train coaches and the engine derailed following the impact, but there were no human casualties, Sharma said. Veterinarians carried out autopsies on the dead elephants, which were to be buried later in the day. The accident site
RUSHED: The US pushed for the October deal to be ready for a ceremony with Trump, but sometimes it takes time to create an agreement that can hold, a Thai official said Defense officials from Thailand and Cambodia are to meet tomorrow to discuss the possibility of resuming a ceasefire between the two countries, Thailand’s top diplomat said yesterday, as border fighting entered a third week. A ceasefire agreement in October was rushed to ensure it could be witnessed by US President Donald Trump and lacked sufficient details to ensure the deal to end the armed conflict would hold, Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs Sihasak Phuangketkeow said after an ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur. The two countries agreed to hold talks using their General Border Committee, an established bilateral mechanism, with Thailand
RSS