The Israeli-Israeli Cross-Section after the Oct. 7 Attack: Hezbollah’s Killing Revisited
The Israeli military said it had killed the 64-year-old leader of Hezbollah in what it called a “targeted strike” on the group’s headquarters on Friday in the southern Beirut neighborhood of Dahiyeh.
At the U.N., Netanyahu vowed to “continue degrading Hezbollah” until Israel achieves its goals. His comments dampened hopes for a U.S.-backed call for a 21-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah to allow time for a diplomatic solution. Hezbollah has not responded to the proposal.
At the U.N., Netanyahu vowed to “continue degrading Hezbollah” until Israel achieves its goals, further dimming hopes for an internationally backed cease-fire.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel immediately after the Oct. 7 attack, as a show of support for the Palestinians. Since then, it and the Israeli military have traded fire almost daily, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes on both sides of the border.
The death toll in Lebanon this week was more than 700, with at least 25 people killed in Israeli strikes early Friday. He said many of the dead were women and children.
The Iraqi Revolutionary Guards fought a decade ago in the war with Lebanon, and today an Israel attack on the Hezbollah headquarters
Under Nasrallah’s leadership, Hezbollah became one of the most powerful militias in the Middle East, boasting a military force stronger even than the Lebanese army. Funded by Iran, Hezbollah trained troops from Hamas. His organization also provides social services
Before co-founding Hezbollah, Nasrallah learned the ropes in the Amal movement, a Shiite political and paramilitary movement. He was chosen to be Hezbollah’s chief two days after its leader, Sayyed Abbas Musawi, was killed by the Israeli military in 1992.
Nasrallah led his group into a war that pushed Israeli troops out of southern Lebanon in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation. His son, Hadi, was killed in fighting with the Israeli army in 1997 — the same year the U.S designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
The group said in a statement that Nasrallah was a part of the group. The official Iranian news agency reported on Saturday that a commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was also killed alongside Nasrallah.
The announcement Saturday of Hezbollah’s leader added that the group’s senior military commander for the region close to Lebanon’s border with Israel was also killed. Hezbollah’s command structure has been largely taken out by Israeli attacks in the past two months.
The scope of Israel’s operation remains unclear, but a ground invasion is possible to push the militant group away from the border. Thousands of troops were moved towards the border.
The United Nations said the fighting has displaced 211,000 people, including 85,000 now staying in public schools and other shelters. Airstrikes have forced 20 primary health care centers to shut down and disrupted access to clean water for nearly 300,000 people.
The site hit Friday evening is not publicly known as Hezbollah’s main headquarters but it is located in a heavily guarded part of Haret Hreik where it runs several nearby hospitals.
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.
Footage showed rescue workers clambering over large slabs of concrete, surrounded by high piles of twisted metal and wreckage. Several craters were visible, one with a car toppled into it. A stream of residents carrying their belongings were seen fleeing along a main road out of the district.
According to Lebanon’s national news agency, six apartment towers were reduced to rubble due to a series of blasts at around nightfall. A wall of billowing black and orange smoke billowed into the sky as homes were rattled and windows were rattled some 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Beirut.
News of the blasts came as Netanyahu was speaking to the UN. A military aide whispered into his ear, and Netanyahu quickly ended the briefing.
Israel launches strikes against Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that killed two women and killed six in the southern suburbs of Tel Aviv
The death toll is likely to rise significantly as teams comb through the rubble of six buildings. Israel launched a series of strikes on other areas of the southern suburbs following the initial blast.
The health ministry in Lebanon said six people were killed and over 90 were wounded. It was the largest blast to hit Lebanon in the past year, and was sure to push the conflict closer to war.
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 their supporters remain defiant. The funerals of three Hezbollah members killed in earlier strikes were held in the same part of town where the explosions took place.
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.
An Israeli security official said he expects the campaign against Hezbollah would not last for as long as the current war in Gaza, because the military’s goals are much narrower.
In a post on the social media platform X, the Israeli military wrote that Nasrallah would “no longer be able to terrorize the world,” prompting loud music to ring out across Tel Aviv in celebration of his death.
Nasrallah only very rarely made public appearances during his 32-year tenure atop a group that several nations, including the United States, have labeled a terrorist organization.
In response to Israel’s “toolbox” of intelligence and intelligence operations, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said in a video statement
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.’