The Isolated Death of Hussein Fadlallah, the Top Official of the Hezbollah Group in Lebanon, and the “State of the Art” of the Reconciliation Process in the Middle East

Hussein Fadlallah, Hezbollah’s top official in Lebanon, said in a speech that despite how many commanders Israel kills, the group has endless numbers of experienced fighters. He vowed that Hezbollah will fight until Israel stops the bombardment of Gaza.

Israel’s military says several airstrikes Friday in central Beirut have killed the long-time leader of the Hezbollah militant group, Hassan Nasrallah, in what represents another dramatic new development in a conflict that has metastasized across the Middle East region since last October.

AL-SHALCHI: It was in this year that the longtime Hezbollah leader became an icon. He was the leader of a militia that pushed Israel’s troops out of southern Lebanon. Nasrallah was the son of an impoverished Shiite family in north Lebanon. Before co-founding Hezbollah, Nasrallah learned the ropes in the Amal Movement, a Shiite political and paramilitary group. He was chosen to be Hezbollah’s leader two days after its head, Abbas Musawi, was killed by the Israeli military in 1992.

Hezbollah’s war against Israel ended in 2000 when the Israeli troops were pushed out of southern Lebanon. His son was killed in the army of Israel in 1997 and the US designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

In a statement released by the group, it said that Nasrallah “has joined his fellow martyrs.” The official Iranian news agency reported on Saturday that a commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was also killed alongside Nasrallah.

AL-SHALCHI: “Retribution will come,” he said. We’ll keep that to ourselves. The White House said today that Nasrallah’s death was a, quote, “measure of justice” for many victims. Nasrallah is survived by his wife and four children. He died at 64. NPR News has Hadeel Al-Shalchi.

Nasrallah – From a Hero to a Hero in the Middle East: A New Look at a hero in Israel’s Resistance Movement

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To many, Nasrallah is the leader of a terrorist organization, but to others in the Middle East, as we just heard, he’s viewed as a hero. NPR’s Hadeel Al-Shalchi takes a closer look at who he was.

In a fiery speech at a podium in Lebanon in 2000, Hassan Nasrallah compares Israel’s military capability to a weak spiderweb.

He became famous for his thick beard, black turban and charisma. Speaking with a slight lisp, Nasrallah appealed to regular Arabs. Mohamad Bazzi is the director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University.

BAZZI: An extreme contrast to most of the other political leaders in Lebanon, whose children would be sent to Switzerland, to – and to universities. And so that solidified that he was making the same kinds of sacrifices that he was asking other people’s children to make.

AL-SHALCHI: For much of the last two decades, Nasrallah was only ever seen on television and never in public for fear of assassination attempts. When Nasrallah spoke, the region and, begrudgingly, the Israeli security establishment had to stop and listen to the message he was about to convey.

Iran’s supreme leader said Hezbollah will be at the forefront of resistance in the Mid-East and condemned an Israeli massacre in Lebanon. Iran announced five days of mourning for Nasrallah.

The scope of Israel’s operation is unknown, but officials think that a ground invasion is a possibility to push the militant group away from the border. Israel moved thousands of troops toward the border in preparation.

The United Nations said the fighting has displaced 211,000 people, including 85,000 now staying in public schools and other shelters. The air strikes have forced 20 primary health care centers to close, and disrupted access to clean water for 300,000 people.

Four hours after the strike, Hezbollah had still not issued any statement referring to it. It said it had launched rockets at the Israeli city of Safed in order to defend Lebanon and its people.

The main Hezbollah headquarters was struck, according to the spokesman for the Israeli army.

Israel provided no immediate comment about the type of bomb or how many it used, but the resulting explosion levelled an area greater than a city block. The Israeli army has in its arsenal 2,000-pound, American-made “Bunker Buster” guided bombs designed specifically for hitting subterranean targets.

Rescue workers were climbing over large slabs of concrete with high piles of twisted metal around them. One of the craters was caused by a car crashing into it. A group of people were fleeing along a road outside of the district.

The series of blasts at around nightfall reduced six apartment towers to rubble in Haret Hreik, a densely populated, predominantly Shiite district of Beirut’s Dahiyeh suburbs, according to Lebanon’s national news agency. A wall of black and orange smoke rose into the air as houses and windows were rattled north of Beirut.

News of the blasts came as Netanyahu was briefing reporters after his U.N. address. A military aide whispered something into Netanyahu’s ear.

Israeli strikes on Hezbollah’s terrorist organization, Hamas, and “We will never tolerate humiliation,” Netanyahu tweeted

The death toll is likely to rise significantly as teams comb through the rubble of six buildings. Israel launched a series of strikes after the initial blast.

The Lebanese health ministry announced late Friday that six people had died and more than 90 had been injured by the strikes, but authorities said they were still clearing vast quantities of rubble, meaning those numbers would likely rise.

People in the giant crowd waved their fists in the air and chanted, “We will never accept humiliation,” as they marched marched behind the three coffins, wrapped in the group’s yellow flag.

Hezbollah officials and supporters are not going to be intimidated. Not long before the explosions Friday evening, thousands gathered in another part of Beirut’s suburbs for the funeral of three Hezbollah members killed in earlier strikes, including the head of the group’s drone unit, Mohammed Surour.

In the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, civil defense workers pulled the bodies of two women — 35-year-old Hiba Ataya and her mother Sabah Olyan — from the rubble of a building brought down by a strike.

In Gaza, Israel aims to destroy Hamas, but in Lebanon it is their goal to push Hezbollah away from the border and that is not a high bar, the official said.

In the past few days, thousands of reservists have also been called up and deployed to the country’s border with Lebanon, as Hezbollah continues to trade rocket fire with Israeli ground forces using artillery and tanks.

Israel’s top military commander, Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, issued a video statement Saturday, in which he said the unprecedented strikes Friday that had targeted Hezbollah’s leadership was “not the end” for what he termed Israel’s “toolbox.’

Israelis were happy with the mood among them. One apartment building in Tel Aviv plays a song with the Hebrew lyrics: “Oh Nasrallah, we will take you down, God willing, and send you back to God along with all of Hezbollah.” At a beach in southern Israel, a lifeguard announced to beachgoers over a loudspeaker that the rat was assassinated yesterday. The people of Israel live.

Amer Al Sabaileh, a Jordanian security expert and close observer of Hezbollah, said the fact Nasrallah was willing to take the high risk to his life of gathering with other Hezbollah commanders amid Israel’s campaign indicates the group was in crisis after two weeks of crippling Israeli attacks.

And the regional consequences could be significant too, according to Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the British think tank Chatham House.

“Iran will be looking for some way to turn the tables and save some face,” Vakil wrote in a long series of online posts about the killing and its impact on Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance” that includes Hezbollah, Hamas and other militant groups like the Houthis in Yemen. “The axis has not proven effective at providing Iran deterrence against Israel, or a Gaza cease-fire.”

But Orna Mizrahi, an Israeli security expert from the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said Israel’s successes in degrading Hezbollah’s leadership structure and military capabilities could be leveraged to reach a lasting agreement that would force Hezbollah forces back from Lebanon’s border with northern Israel.

Nick Blanford, a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council, said Hezbollah should follow a process that saw his elevation more than 30 years ago.

“The morale blow is going to be massive for Hezbollah, but technically it should be a repetition of what happened in ’92,” says Blanford. The Shura Council is sitting down and electing someone else.

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, in a post on X, said he had spoken with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Saturday. Lammy said that they agreed on the need for a ceasefire to bring an end to the bloodshed.

The president called Nasrallah’s death “a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.” Israel has a right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, and any other Iranian-supported terrorist group, he said.

Meanwhile, senior figures across the Israeli political spectrum and the country’s military leaders praised the assassination. He was a real threat to the lives of thousands of Israelis, according to the country’s defense minister. The action closed the account with Nasrallah, whose hands were covered with the blood of thousands of civilians and soldiers.

The people in Idlib province celebrated in the streets because of Hezbollah’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “People are happy to hear it. Is this possible? Too many people have been displaced, killed, and lost loved ones because of Nasrallah’s support to the Syrian regime. They took part in destroying several cities and displacing so many people,” he said.

Thousands of people have fled the southern and eastern regions of the country because of repeated Israeli strikes. And many have also been pouring over the border to neighboring Syria, Syrian journalist Danny Makki told NPR, speaking from the capital Damascus.

In Washington, President Biden in a White House statement said Nasrallah and Hezbollah “were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror.”

In his first public remarks, Netanyahu said that the assassination of Nasrhood was an essential condition for Israel to achieve its war goals.

Israel’s military ordered restrictions on public gatherings in central Israel to make sure that the country was prepared for a possible Hezbollah or other Iran-supported militias strike.