People and rescuers gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a building that according to security sources killed Hezbollah’s media relations chief Mohammad Afif in Ras Al- Nabaa, in Beirut, Lebanon November 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A Lebanese security source said Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif was killed in an Israeli strike on Sunday (November 17, 2024) in central Beirut that hit the Lebanese branch of the Syrian Baath party.

“The strike on Ras al-Nabaa killed Hezbollah media relations official Mohammed Afif,” the security source said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to brief the media.

Ali Hijazi, secretary-general of the Lebanese branch of the Baath party, “confirmed the death of Hezbollah media official” Afif, the official National News Agency reported.

The Israeli Army declined to comment, but Afif is the latest in a long line of Hezbollah officials killed since Israel on September 23 began heavily bombarding Hezbollah strongholds after almost a year of cross-border exchanges with the Iran-backed group over the Gaza war.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said the strike killed one person and wounded three others, adding that the toll was provisional and that work was ongoing to remove rubble from the site of the strike.

Afif was part of the inner circle of longtime Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike in September.

For years, Afif had been responsible for Hezbollah’s media relations, providing information to local and foreign journalists, often under the cover of anonymity.

The NNA said the strike by “enemy aircraft” caused “great destruction”, reporting an unspecified number of people “trapped under the rubble” in Ras al-Nabaa, an area near the French embassy and a university.

It said “one of the residents of a neighbouring building had received a warning call urging evacuation but it was not taken seriously”.

Afif joined Hezbollah at a young age and first came to prominence as information director for Hezbollah’s television channel Al-Manar when the group and Israel went to war in 2006.

After Nasrallah’s assassination, Afif had held several press conferences in Beirut’s southern suburbs, including one last month in which he announced Hezbollah had launched a drone targeting the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

That press conference was cut short when the Israeli Army warned it would strike a building nearby.

“Bombardments have not scared us, so how would threats?” Afif said defiantly as journalists hurriedly collected their microphones from the table.

Hezbollah officials killed in previous Israeli strikes include not only Nasrallah but also Hashem Safieddine, tipped as the former chief’s successor.

Senior Hezbollah leader Hashem Safieddine attends a funeral in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, on September 18, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Hashem Safieddine, a strongman who rose through the ranks of the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah over decades to become the second-most powerful person within the organisation, has died.

Safieddine, who was about 60, was killed in early October in a series of Israeli airstrikes in a southern suburb of Beirut that shook much of the Lebanese capital, part of Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah. Israel said Tuesday (October 22, 2024) that Safieddine had been killed in the strikes; Hezbollah confirmed the death Wednesday (October 23, 2024).

Safieddine’s death came as he was widely expected to be elected the group’s next leader after the death of Hassan Nasrallah, one of its founders.

Safieddine, Nasrallah’s maternal cousin, had spent years preparing for the position — but the announcement was slow in coming following the September 27 airstrike in the Beirut suburbs that killed Nasrallah, part of a series of blows dealt by Israel that had left Hezbollah in disarray.

A black-turbaned cleric with a thick gray beard who bore a strong resemblance to Nasrallah, Safieddine was known for defiant speeches in which he vowed that Hezbollah would keep fighting Israel no matter the price.

A familiar face in Lebanon and a leader with close ties to Iran, he was a member of the group’s decision-making Shura Council and its Jihad Council, which acts as its military command. He also headed its Executive Council, which runs schools and social programs.

Safieddine’s death comes at a delicate time for Hezbollah. In the wake of its ally Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s ensuing offensive in Gaza, Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles at Israel — and they have exchanged fire regularly since.

But recent weeks have seen a significant escalation, as Israel carried out a series of strikes on top Hezbollah commanders and apparently blew up thousands of communication devices used by the group’s members. It has since launched a ground invasion in Lebanon that it says aims to push Hezbollah militants back from the border.

Despite the lack of formal announcement following Nasrallah’s death, it was widely known that Safieddine was already in control and running the group’s affairs, though the official acting leader was his deputy, Naim Kassem.

It’s not clear who will end up taking Hezbollah’s top job now, especially since another leading candidate, Nabil Kaouk, was also killed in an Israeli strike hours after Nasrallah’s death.

Like Nasrallah, Safieddine held the title of sayyid, an honorific meant to signify the Shiite cleric’s lineage dating back to the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Since its founding during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah has been led by a cleric.

During a funeral in a Beirut suburb last month for Hezbollah members who were killed in the exploding pagers attack, Safieddine vowed that Hezbollah would not bow down and would fight back.

“This aggression will definitely face its special punishment. This punishment is definitely coming,” Safieddine said.

During the ceremony, several walkie-talkies exploded wounding people nearby. Safieddine stayed at the funeral until the end, despite the new round of blasts.

Safieddine was close to Iran. His son, Rida, is married to Zeinab Soleimani, the daughter of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq in 2020.

Safieddine’s brother, Abdallah, is Hezbollah’s point man in Tehran, a crucial role in the organization given that Iran is its main backer, providing it with weapons and money.

In May 2017, the U.S. and some of its Arab allies, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, imposed sanctions on 10 top Hezbollah officials including Nasrallah, Kassem and Safieddine.

Hezbollah has suffered some of the heaviest losses in its history over the past two weeks, chief among them the killing of its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an Israeli airstrike.

Two weeks ago, thousands of communications devices used by Hezbollah members exploded, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000 in an apparent remotely detonated attack that Hezbollah blamed on Israel.

Israel strike LIVE updates – October 4, 2024

The Lebanese militant group has lost nearly 500 fighters since it started attacking Israeli military posts in support of its ally, Hamas, last October. And hundreds more were likely killed in Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon over the past week, which has killed a number of high-ranking commanders and officials.

Where Hezbollah stands after its recent losses

Still, Hezbollah has continued to launch rockets at central Israel. The group’s chief spokesman, Mohammed Afif, warned on Tuesday (October 1, 2024) that those attacks were only the beginning and that the militant group is waiting for invading forces to enter Lebanon to confront them.

Iran, which backs Hezbollah, fired dozens of missiles into Israel on Tuesday (October 1, 2024) and referenced Nasrallah’s death in a statement on state television claiming responsibility for the attack. The bombardment came a day after Israel said it had begun limited ground operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s tens of thousands of fighters have been battle-hardened in regional conflicts, including in Syria, where the militant group helped tip the balance of power in the 13-year conflict in favour of President Bashar Assad.

Hezbollah has five main units, each consisting of several thousand fighters.

The Nasr and Aziz units are deployed in areas bordering Israel, with Nasr controlling the south-eastern region including the edge of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. The Aziz unit is deployed in the southwest, including along the Mediterranean coast. Nasr and Aziz commanders were killed in Israeli airstrikes earlier this year but were believed to have been replaced.

The Badr unit is deployed in an area that includes Apple province, a mountainous region overlooking large parts of southern Lebanon that has been a Hezbollah stronghold since the late 1980s. The Haidar unit is in the eastern Bekaa Valley while the Dahiyeh unit is in Beirut’s heavily populated southern suburb that housed the group’s headquarters where Nasrallah was killed Friday.

The group also has the elite Radwan Force of several thousand fighters, part of which is deployed along the border with Israel. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said in a report Monday that invading Israeli troops will get to know the experienced fighters of Radwan Force if they decide to launch a ground invasion.

In recent weeks, Hezbollah has lost some of its most experienced military commanders, including Ibrahim Akil, who was in charge of the Radwan Force, and Ibrahim Kobbeisi, who was the group’s missiles commander.

The commander of Hezbollah’s drones unit, Mohammed Surour, and the commander of Hezbollah forces in south Lebanon, Ali Karaki, were also killed in air strikes.

In late July, Israel killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fouad Shukur.

Among the group’s commanders who are still active is Talal Hamieh, who is in charge of Hezbollah’s external operations, and Khodor Nader, who heads the group’s security unit. Hezbollah denied Israeli statements that claimed to have killed senior military commander known as Abu Ali Rida, commander of the Badr unit.

The group’s strongman, Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s maternal cousin, is also alive and widely expected to replace Nasrallah as Hezbollah secretary-general. Safieddine is close to Iran and his son, Rida, is married to Zeinab Soleimani, the daughter of an Iranian general who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq in 2020.

Hezbollah has an arsenal of more than 150,000 rockets and missiles as well as surveillance and explosive drones of different types.

Over the past year, Hezbollah has used a small type of guided missile known as Almas, or Diamond, as well as short-range Falaq and Burkan rockets from areas several kilometers (miles) from the border. Over the past week, Hezbollah introduced the middle-range Fadi rockets, attacking the outskirts of Tel Aviv and the northern city of Haifa.

Hezbollah has yet to use all the weapons it is believed to possess, including its precision-guided missiles and surface-to-sea missiles such as the Russian-made Yakhont.

Israeli officials say its bombardment of large swaths of Lebanon over the past week aimed to take out Hezbollah’s supplies of weapons. However, since the escalation began, Hezbollah has continued to launch attacks across the border and even unveiled new types of weapons.

On Tuesday, Hezbollah said it fired middle-range Fadi-4 rockets toward the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. Hours later, the group said it fired similar rockets toward an air base in a Tel Aviv suburb. The group has used surface-to-air missiles and shot down or chased off Israeli drones on several occasions — including in the past week.

Most of the incoming fire has either been intercepted or landed in open areas. But Israeli military officials warn that the country’s air defenses are not hermetic.

Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on September 28, 2024 in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

In just over a week, intensified Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed seven high-ranking commanders and officials from the powerful Hezbollah militant group, including the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

The move left Lebanon and much of the Mideast in shock as Israeli officials celebrated major military and intelligence breakthroughs.

Also Read: Israeli airstrike hits central Beirut on September 30, 2024 LIVE updates

Hezbollah had opened a front to support its ally Hamas in the Gaza Strip a day after the Palestinian group’s surprise attack into southern Israel.

The recent strikes in Lebanon and the assassination of Mr. Nasrallah are a significant escalation in the war in the Middle East, this time between Israel and Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s most powerful military and political force now finds itself trying to recuperate from severe blows, having lost key members who have been part of Hezbollah since its establishment in the early 1980s.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah

Chief among them was Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in a series of airstrikes that leveled several buildings in southern Beirut. Others were lesser-known in the outside world but still key to Hezbollah’s operations.

Since 1992, Mr. Nasrallah had led the group through several wars with Israel and oversaw the party’s transformation into a powerful player in Lebanon. Hezbollah entered Lebanon’s political arena while also taking part in regional conflicts that made it the most powerful paramilitary force. After Syria’s uprising in 2011 spiraled into civil war, Hezbollah played a pivotal role in keeping Syrian President Bashar Assad in power. Under Mr. Nasrallah, Hezbollah also helped develop the capabilities of fellow Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq and Yemen.

Mr. Nasrallah is a divisive figure in Lebanon, with his supporters hailing him for ending Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000 and his opponents decrying him for the group’s weapons stockpile and making unilateral decisions that they say serve an agenda for Tehran and allies.

Nabil Kaouk

Nabil Kaouk, who was killed in an airstrike on Saturday (September 28, 2024), was the deputy head of Hezbollah’s Central Council. He joined the militant group in its early days in the 1980s. Kaouk also served as Hezbollah’s military commander in south Lebanon from 1995 until 2010. He made several media appearances and gave speeches to supporters, including at funerals for killed Hezbollah militants. He had been seen as a potential successor to Mr. Nasrallah.

Ibrahim Akil

Ibrahim Akil was a top commander and led Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces, which Israel has been trying to push further away from its border with Lebanon. He was also a member of its highest military body, the Jihad Council, and for years had been on the United States’ wanted list. The U.S. State Department says Mr. Akil was part of the group that carried out the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and orchestrated the taking of German and American hostages.

Ahmad Wehbe

Ahmad Wehbe was a commander of the Radwan Forces and played a crucial role in developing the group since its formation almost two decades ago. He was killed alongside Mr. Akil in an airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs that struck and leveled a building.

Ali Karaki 

Ali Karaki led Hezbollah’s southern front, playing a key role in the ongoing conflict. The U.S. described him as a significant figure in the militant group’s leadership. Little is known about Karaki, who was killed alongside Mr. Nasrallah.

Mohammad Surour

Mohammad Surour was the head of Hezbollah’s drone unit, which was used for the first time in this current conflict with Israel. Under his leadership, Hezbollah launched exploding and reconnaissance drones deep into Israel, penetrating its defense systems, which had mostly focused on the group’s rockets and missiles.

Ibrahim Kobeisi

Ibrahim Kobeisi led Hezbollah’s missile unit. The Israeli military says Kobeissi planned the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli soldiers at the northern border in 2000, whose bodies were returned in a prisoner swap with Hezbollah four years later.

Even in the months before the recent escalation of the war with Hezbollah, Israel’s military had targeted top commanders, most notably Fuad Shukur in late July, hours before an explosion in Iran widely blamed on Israel killed the leader of the Palestinian Hamas militant group Ismail Haniyeh. The U.S. accuses Fuad Shukur of orchestrating the 1983 bombing in Beirut that killed 241 American servicemen.

Leaders of key units in the south, Jawad Tawil, Taleb Abdullah, and Mohammad Nasser, who over several decades became instrumental members of Hezbollah’s military activity, were all assassinated.

Mr. Nasrallah’s second-in-command, Naim Kassem, is the most senior member of the organization. Mr. Kassem has been Hezbollah’s deputy leader since 1991 and is among its founding members. On several occasions, local news networks were quick to assume that an Israeli strike in southern Beirut may have targeted Kassem.

Mr. Kassem is the only top official of the militant group who has conducted interviews with local and international media in the ongoing conflict. The deputy leader appears to be involved in various aspects of the militant group, both in top political and security matters, but also in matters related to Hezbollah’s theocratic and charity initiatives to the Shia Muslim community in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Hashim Safieddine, who heads Hezbollah’s central council, is tipped to be Mr. Nasrallah’s successor. Mr. Safieddine is a cousin of the late Hezbollah leader, and his son is married to the daughter of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was slain in a U.S. drone strike in 2020. Like Mr. Nasrallah, Mr. Safieddine joined Hezbollah early on and similarly wears a black turban.

Talal Hamieh and Abu Ali Reda are the two remaining top commanders from Hezbollah who are alive and apparently on the Israeli military’s crosshairs.

On September 27, Hassan Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for more than three decades, was assassinated by Israeli airstrikes on Beirut.
| Photo Credit: AFP

When Hassan Nasrallah, then 32, became the Secretary-General of Hezbollah in 1992, after the assassination of the group’s leader and co-founder Abbas al-Musawi, one of the first things he did was to order rocket attacks into northern Israel. A car bomb hit the Israeli embassy in Turkiye, killing a security officer, while a suicide bomber blew himself up at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 29 people.

Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to push the Palestine Liberation Organisation out of the country. It did so, but the war led to the rise of Hezbollah, which turned out to be a greater security challenge than the PLO. In 1992, when Israel killed Mr. Musawi, what it wanted to do was deal a lethal blow to Hezbollah. But Mr. Musawi’s successor sent a message in unmistakable terms that he would double down on Hezbollah’s resistance.

The rocket attacks and embassy bombings were just the beginning of Hezbollah’s violent resistance under Mr. Nasrallah, who would turn the organisation, which was largely a guerrilla militia when he took over, into a multifaceted movement, with a military wing that is more powerful than the Lebanese Army. On September 27, Mr. Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for more than three decades, was assassinated by Israeli airstrikes on Beirut.

Mr. Nasrallah “has joined his fellow martyrs”, Hezbollah said in a statement on Saturday (September 28, 2024), confirming his death. Martyrdom is a central ideological and religious theme of Shia political activism. It is the supreme sacrifice. In September 1997, after Mr. Nasrallah’s eldest son Muhammad Hadi was killed in an Israeli ambush near Mlikh, a mountain village in southern Lebanon, he said, “I am proud to be the father of one of the martyrs”.

Born and raised in a working-class suburb of Beirut, Mr. Nasrallah undertook his religious studies in Baalbek in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and then in Iran. When the Iranian revolution took place, which gave a new meaning to Shia political Islam and radicalised youths across the region, Mr. Nasrallah was 19. He saw the power of religion and martyrdom. He witnessed the devastation brought by the civil war in Lebanon. He also saw the aggression of Israel in 1982, which had hit the marginalised Shia community the hardest. He was initially part of the Amal party, a Shia movement. When the radical sections of Amal split from the party and formed Hezbollah, Mr. Nasrallah joined them.

After he assumed leadership of the movement, his focus was on resistance against Israel’s continuing occupation of southern Lebanon, where they had carved a buffer called ‘security zone’. Hezbollah, with rocket attacks and ambushes, had turned the security zone into an ‘insecurity zone’. Amid growing violence, in 2000, 18 years after it started the Lebanon invasion, Israel decided to withdraw troops from the south. Mr. Nasrallah termed it “the first Arab victory against the Zionist entity”. In 2006, a cross-border raid by Hezbollah triggered the wrath of Israel, which launched a ground invasion and massive air strikes. The war went on for a month, causing great damage to Hezbollah. But Israel, despite its firepower, failed to defeat Hezbollah or deter its rockets from southern Lebanon. When Israel withdrew from Lebanon after reaching a ceasefire with Hezbollah, the group claimed another victory.

Another pivotal moment of Mr. Nasrallah’s leadership was the civil war in Syria, an ally, where the regime of Bashar al-Assad was threatened by a multitude of rebel and jihadist groups, including the Islamic State. “If Syria falls in the hands of America, Israel and the takfiris (a reference to IS and al-Qaeda jihadists), the people of our region will go into a dark period,” Nasrallah said in 2013, confirming that Hezbollah was fighting in Syria alongside the troops of the Assad regime. Hezbollah, along with other Iran-backed Shia militias and Russia, played a crucial role in turning around the Syrian civil war.

The “obliteration” of Israel and the liberation of Jerusalem were two of the main declared objectives of Hezbollah. When Israel launched its retaliatory war on Gaza following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack in Israel, Hezbollah started firing rockets into Israel “in solidarity with the Palestinians”.

Editorial | Rogue state: On Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah

Ever since, Hezbollah has been fighting a limited war, turning northern Israel into a no-man’s area. But earlier this month, Israel decided to escalate the war dramatically. Within days, Israel launched back-to-back attacks without letting Hezbollah recover from the effects. It triggered pager and walkie-talkie explosions first and then launched waves of massive airstrikes, taking out Hezbollah’s senior commanders.

On September 27, by assassinating Mr. Nasrallah, Israel dealt the heaviest blow to Hezbollah and its ally, Iran. Mr. Nasrallah led the group through wars. And he was killed in a war. Israel might be hoping that Hezbollah would take time to recover from its punches. Hezbollah says it will continue its “holy war against the enemy”. West Asia will remain on edge.

Supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah react as the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah addresses them through a giant screen in Beirut’s southern suburbs on August 9, 2022. Hezbollah confirmed on September 28, 2024 that its leader had been killed, after Israel said it had “eliminated” him in a strike on south Beirut a day earlier.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The story so far: It’s been almost a year since the latest Gaza war began. And now, Israel has shifted its focus towards its northern border with Lebanon. Over the past week, Israel has carried out massive bombardments in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, killing at least 700 people and displacing more than 1,00,000. Among the dead was Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary-General of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah killing in Beirut: LIVE updates

What preceded the air strikes?

The air strikes followed explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon, which hit hundreds of Hezbollah fighters. Hezbollah, in retaliation, fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, including a ballistic missile which was intercepted over Tel Aviv. The U.S. and France called for a ceasefire, but Israel quickly ruled out the proposal. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says his army will continue to fight “until meeting its objectives” in Lebanon, and achieving “total victory” against Hamas in Gaza.

What is the Hezbollah?

The Hezbollah was formed as a Shia resistance organisation in 1982, with help from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in the aftermath of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in the same year. Israel sent troops to Lebanon to force the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) out of the country. While Israel managed to force the PLO to relocate from Lebanon to Tunisia, and carved a buffer in southern Lebanon, the war led to the rise of militant Shia resistance, which turned out to be a long-term security challenge for Israel. The Shia community had historically been marginalised in Lebanon where power was divided between the Maronite Christians (for whom the Presidency was reserved) and Sunnis (Premiership). The Shias reorganised themselves under Hezbollah, which built a sprawling political, military and social network that’s deeply entrenched in Lebanon’s state and society. The group has a political party which has parliamentarians, a social wing that caters to the lower strata of society, and a powerful military unit, backed by Iran, which has fighters and short, medium and long-range missiles.

Why are Israel and Hezbollah fighting?

The raison d’etre of Hezbollah is resistance against Israel. Destruction of “the Zionist entity” has been one of the goals mentioned in Hezbollah’s manifesto. The group, which is termed a terrorist organisation by both Israel and the U.S., takes credit for forcing Israel to end its occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, 18 years after it invaded Lebanon. Last time Israel and Hezbollah fought a full-scale war was in 2006 when Israel invaded Lebanon after a Hezbollah cross-border raid. The trigger for the latest flare-up was the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed. When Israel launched its retaliatory war on Gaza, Hezbollah started firing rockets into Israel “in solidarity with the Palestinians”. In response, Israel started bombing Lebanon. Ever since, a slow-burning war continued to rage on the Israel-Lebanon border, which displaced some 70,000 Israelis from the border region. The escalation came on July 30 when Israel killed Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander, in an air strike in Beirut. Hezbollah stepped up its rocket attacks. Earlier this month, Israel said enabling the displaced citizens to go back to their homes is one of the objectives of the war. Then came the pager explosions, which were followed by air strikes.

How powerful is Hezbollah?

Israel sees Hezbollah as a mortal enemy. Hezbollah’s weapons include Fateh ballistic missiles with a range of 250 km and Sayyad surface-to-surface missiles (up to 100 km) and C-802 anti-ship missiles (120 km). It also has anti-tank missiles, artillery rockets and tens of thousands of short range rockets such as Bukan, Katyusha, Falaq and Almas. In terms of conventional might, this may not be a match for Israel. An undeclared nuclear power, Israel is the most powerful military force in West Asia, which enjoys the support and protection of the U.S., the world’s most powerful country. But Hezbollah is not a conventional force. It’s a highly armed guerrilla army with conventional weapons and asymmetric tactics, which had hurt Israel in the past. Since 2006, Hezbollah has rebuilt its weapons stocks many times more. But Hezbollah’s response to Israel’s attacks have so far been limited. Hezbollah, either by conscious decision or by limitations, chose to fire short-range rockets into Israel in response to the air strikes. But the assassination of Nasrallah, which Hezbollah has confirmed, is the heaviest blow yet. Nasrallah is credited to have built Hezbollah to what it is today.

What does Israel want?

After almost a year of fighting in Gaza, Israel has not met any of its declared objectives — the decimation of Hamas and the release of the hostages. Israeli troops have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and turned the enclave into an open refugee camp. Israel is practically stuck in the Gaza quagmire — without something that can be shown to the public as ‘victory’, Mr. Netanyahu, on whose watch the October 7 attack unfolded, can’t end the war. If he ends the war through a ceasefire deal with Hamas, his government could collapse (his far-right allies have threatened to withdraw their support). But Hezbollah says as long as the Gaza war goes on, it would fire rockets into Israel. Mr. Netanyahu can’t accept a ceasefire in Gaza, but wants to stop the Hezbollah attacks. Faced with no easy solutions, Israel decided to escalate the conflict with Hezbollah. Israel wants to degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities, and turn them away from the border region. The fire power Israel used over the past week can be comparable to Israel’s bombing of the Egyptian air force in 1967. Israel also carried out targeted air strikes at Hezbollah leaders, killing at least four commanders besides Nasrallah.

Editorial |Rogue state: On Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah

What next?

Israel’s leadership has ruled out a ceasefire on the Lebanese border. It’s not clear yet whether Israel would launch a ground invasion into Lebanon. Here, Israel faces a dilemma. Hezbollah is far more powerful than Hamas and at this point of the conflict, nobody is deterring anybody. Iran’s proxy might is not deterring Israel. Israel’s fire power is not deterring Hezbollah and the Houthis. And Hezbollah’s rockets are not deterring Israel from pounding Lebanon. This was a conflict loop, which could break into an escalatory ladder, triggering an all-out war. Then came the Nasrallah killing.

From October 7, Hezbollah was fighting a limited war needling Israel in the north but wary of escalation. But once Israel decided to escalate, it went in with full force. There cannot have been a greater provocation than the killing of the Secretary General. It is as if Israel is pushing Hezbollah to fight a larger war. The next question is what will Hezbollah (and Iran) do? Will the group fold under pressure or regroup itself and fight the Jewish state with full force? Its choice will decide whether West Asia will slide into an all-out war.

While Israel is pounding Beirut with airstrikes, European, Arab and Islamic nations have launched an initiative to strengthen support for a Palestinian state and its institutions, and prepare for a future after the war in Gaza and escalating conflict in Lebanon, Norway’s foreign minister said on Friday (September 27, 2024).

Espen Barth Eide, Norway’s foreign minister, told The Associated Press, “there is a growing consensus in the international community from Western countries, from Arab countries, from the Global South, that we need to establish a Palestinian Authority, a Palestinian government, a Palestinian state — and the Palestinian state has to be recognized.”- AP

An undated handout photo released by the Hezbollah military media press office on September 21, 2024, shows Hezbollah top commander Ibrahim Aqil, who was killed on September 20 in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Ibrahim Aqil, the Hezbollah operations commander killed in an Israeli strike on Friday (September 20, 2024), had a $7 million bounty on his head for two 1983 Beirut truck bombings that killed more than 300 people at the American embassy and a U.S. Marines barracks.

Two security sources in Lebanon confirmed the veteran fighter was killed in an airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs during a meeting of the elite Radwan unit of the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group.

Aqil, who has also used the aliases Tahsin and Abdelqader, was the second member of Hezbollah’s top military body, the Jihad Council, to be killed in two months after an Israeli strike in the same area targeted Fuad Shukr in July.

Israel escalated its attacks on the group this week after months of border fighting triggered by the conflict in Gaza that began on Oct. 7 with a deadly raid and hostage-taking in Israel by Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas.

Like Shukr, Aqil is a veteran of Hezbollah, which was founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the early 1980s to battle Israeli forces that had invaded and occupied Lebanon.

Born in a village in Lebanon’s Beqaa valley sometime around 1960, Aqil had joined the other big Lebanese Shia political movement, Amal, before switching to Hezbollah as a founding member, according to a security source.

The United States accuses him of a role in the Beirut truck bombings at the American embassy in April 1983, which killed 63 people, and a U.S. Marine barracks six months later that killed 241 people.

It further accused him of directing the abduction of American and German hostages in Lebanon and listed him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2019, putting the $7 million bounty on his head.

Referring to the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks and other attacks on Western interests in Lebanon in the 1980s, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a 2022 interview with an Arabic broadcaster that they were carried out by small groups not linked to Hezbollah.

Aqil’s cohort of founding Hezbollah operatives helped turn the group from a shadowy militia into Lebanon’s most powerful military and political organisation, pushing Israel from its occupation of the south in 2000 and fighting it again in 2006.

When Shukr was killed in July, it was seen as the heaviest blow to its command structure since the 2008 assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, remembered by Hezbollah as a legendary commander but by Israel and the United States as a terrorist.

Aqil, whose bounty was set by the United States at an even higher value than that of Shukr’s, may prove a similar blow.