Israel kills Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah
People listen to a speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Nov. 3, 2023 in Tehran, Iran. Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images
(JTA) — Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, in an airstrike in Beirut Friday, the latest Israeli assassination of a terror group leader and a pivotal development in the escalating conflict on Israel’s northern border.
For three decades, Nasrallah was one of the most powerful leaders in the Middle East: As the head of Hezbollah, he led the best-equipped terror group threatening Israel and the region’s largest Iranian proxy, with control of southern Lebanon and a reach that spanned the globe. In a statement on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Nasrallah was “not just another terrorist, he was the terrorist.”
Netanyahu added that the assassination, reportedly carried out as the prime minister gave a speech in New York to the United Nations General Assembly, could presage more conflict in the days ahead. On Saturday, a Hezbollah missile hit the outskirts of Jerusalem, and the group has vowed to keep fighting.
“The elimination of Nasrallah is a necessary condition in achieving the objectives 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.
“In the coming days, we will face significant challenges and we will face them together,” he continued. “There is no place in Iran or the Middle East that the long arm of Israel cannot reach.”
The assassination was perhaps the most major step in a nearly yearlong conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that has ramped up sharply in recent days. Shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Hezbollah began shelling Israel’s northern border, prompting tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes and turning Israel’s border region as well as parts of southern Lebanon into a war-torn no-man’s land.
The cross-border exchanges have continued, and in the months following last October, dozens of civilians on both sides of the border were killed, in addition to approximately 20 Israeli soldiers and hundreds of Hezbollah fighters.
Over the past 10 days, that conflict has gotten more severe. Israel is thought to have killed a number of senior Hezbollah leaders in addition to depleting the group’s stock of missiles. Lebanese authorities say more than 1,000 people have been killed in the country in that period. Hezbollah’s attacks have also intensified, with rockets targeting Israeli population centers in the middle of the country.
In response to Nasrallah’s death, which it confirmed, Hezbollah said it would continue fighting “in support of Gaza and Palestine, and in defense of Lebanon and its steadfast and honorable people,” according to Reuters.
Hezbollah has long menaced Israel, including since Nasrallah, who was 64, took the reins of the group in 1992. Hezbollah was founded in the 1980s to combat Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, where it also killed hundreds of American troops. The two sides fought a monthlong war in 2006 that ended with Hezbollah retaining control of much of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah also played a significant role in helping Bashar Assad survive the Syrian civil war beginning in 2011.
It has also killed Israelis and Jews far from the Middle East. It was behind the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people, as well as a 2012 attack on Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria that killed six.
Nasrallah, who was born in Beirut in 1960, had enormous influence in Lebanon and beyond, and grew Hezbollah, which also has a powerful political party, into a fighting force with tens of thousands of troops and a deep arsenal. He called Israel a “cancer” and routinely said it needed to be destroyed.
President Joe Biden praised the strike, and called for ceasefires in the Lebanon conflict as well as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The United States is pursuing ceasefire deals in both conflicts. The United States has designated Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist group.
“Hassan Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror,” Biden said. “His death from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.”
His assassination is the latest Israeli strike on a senior leader of a terror organization. In addition to Israel’s assassinations of other Hezbollah figures, it is believed to have killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and Hamas’ military leader in Gaza, Mohammad Deif.
Following the assassination of Nasrallah, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was taken to a secure location, Reuters reported.
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