The Israeli Attack on the Hezbollah Group, as Seen by a U.N. Trooper, the Pentagon, and the United Nations
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.
The scope of Israel’s operation remains unclear, but officials have said a ground invasion to push the militant group away from the border is a possibility. Thousands of troops were moved toward the border.
85,000 people are now staying in public schools and other shelters as a result of the fighting. Airstrikes have forced 20 primary health care centers to shut down and disrupted access to clean water for nearly 300,000 people.
Israel says its accelerated strikes have already inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollah’s weapons capabilities and its fighters. The Hezbollah missile unit commander and his deputy were killed Tuesday in a strike in southern Lebanon. There was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah.
The Hezbollah site that was hit on Friday has not been publicly named the group’s main headquarters, but it is located in the group’s security quarters and runs several hospitals nearby.
Israel spent the last week trying to remove Hezbollah’s senior leadership. An attempt to assassinate Nasrallah would be a major step forward. The Pentagon said there was no advance warning of the strikes.
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 people fleeing along a main road out of the district.
The buildings that were leveled in south Lebanon were labeled the headquarters of Hezbollah in statements issued by Israel as the smoke and debris clouds from the explosion rose above the city.
News of the blasts came as Netanyahu was briefing reporters after his U.N. address. Netanyahu stopped the briefings when a military aide whispered into his ear.
The War in Lebanon and the War in the Middle East: Israel’s Campaign against Hezbollah and a Call for War to End
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.
More than 90 people have been injured and at least six are dead, but authorities said they are still clearing rubble, meaning the figure will likely rise.
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.
People in the giant crowd waved their hands and chanted, “We will never accept humiliation” as they marched behind the three coffins wrapped in the yellow flag.
Hezbollah officials and supporters are defiant. Thousands came to another part of Lebanon’s suburbs for a funeral of Hezbollah members who had been killed in earlier strikes.
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.
The goal in Lebanon is not to destroy Hamas, but to keep Hezbollah away from the border, according to the official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Loud music boomed in Tel Aviv as the Israeli military wrote that Nasrallah wouldn’t be able to “mitigate the world” due to 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.
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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.’
Amer Al Sabaileh, a Jordanian security expert and close observer of Hezbollah, said that Hezbollah was in crisis after two weeks of Israeli attacks because Nasrallah was willing to take the high risk to gather with other Hezbollah commanders.
“The level of shock among Hezbollah cannot be measured,” Al Sabaileh said. They didn’t expected that Israel would start and continue attacking Hezbollah.
Sanam Vakil is the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the British think tank Chatham House.
Iran is going to be looking for some way to turn the tables in regards to Hezbollah and other militant groups that were affected by the killing, according to Vakil. “The axis has not proven effective at providing Iran deterrence against Israel, or a Gaza cease-fire.”
Orna Mizrahi, an Israeli security expert from the Institute for National Security studies in Tel Aviv, said that there could be a lasting agreement between Israel and Hezbollah if Israel degrading its military capabilities and leadership structure were enough to make a deal happen.
The process by which Hezbollah may replace its leader is not clear, but should follow the same one that saw his elevation more than thirty years ago, said Nick Blanford, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council.
Hezbollah is going to get a huge blow, but it will be similar to what happened in the 92nd century. “The Shura Council sits down and they elect somebody else.”
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, in a post on X, said he had spoken with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Saturday. “We agreed on the need for an immediate ceasefire to bring an end to the bloodshed and a diplomatic solution is the only way to restore security and stability,” Lammy said.
The president called Nasrallah’s death “a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.” He also reiterated full support for “Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and any other Iranian-supported terrorist groups.”
The militant groups in Gaza that have been branded a terrorist organization by the United States and a number of other nations were defiant. Islamic Jihad said it was “fully confident” that Nasrallah’s death would “increase the strength, steadfastness and determination of the resistance in Lebanon, Palestine and the region,” while a statement released by Hamas said history showed the deaths of leaders such as Nasrallah meant they would be “succeeded on the same path by a generation of leaders who are more valiant, stronger and more determined.” The souls of Nasralla and Haniyeh are within the birds of heaven, according to Hamas senior figure Khalil al-Hayya.
In Syria where Hezbollah supports the Syrian President, people celebrated on the street, according to Syrian journalist Fared Al Mahlool. “People are happy to hear it. … 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.
In the last week, tens of thousands of people have fled the country due to repeated Israeli strikes. Danny Makki, a Syrian journalist, told NPR that people have been pouring over the border to Syria.
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 military said that the Hezbollah leader was killed in Dahiyeh, a suburb of southern Lebanon. It said Hezbollah’s acting deputy, Ali Karki, and other Hezbollah commanders were among those killed as they were planning further attacks on Israel.
It described Nasrallah as “a great martyr, a heroic, bold, brave, wise, insightful, and faithful leader,” and would remain, despite his death, “still among us with his thought, spirit, line and sacred approach.”
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.”
To highlight the attack’s potential to ignite an even wider Middle East conflict, the semiofficial Iranian news agency, Mehr, reported that an operational head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brig. Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan, had also been killed in the strike. Iran has long financed and supported Hezbollah, while also supplying weapons and missile technology to the group.
When Netanyahu spoke at the UN, Hezbollah’s headquarters was attacked. An Israeli official speaking in line with protocol said Netanyahu greenlit the strike before he delivered his address.
In his first public remarks on Friday’s attack, Netanyahu said the assassination of Nasrallah, who he described as “the architect” of a plan to “annihilate” Israel, was an “essential condition” for Israel to achieve its war goals.
The Israeli military has ordered limits on public gatherings in central Israel in order to be ready for Hezbollah or other Iranian militias that may retaliate against Israel.
New Developments in the Middle East: The Assassination of Nasrallah by Israel and Israel’s First Invasion of Lebanon
Biden said that on the next day, Nasrallah made a fateful decision to join hands with Hamas and start a fight against Israel.
In a separate statement, Biden noted the operation to take out Nasrallah happened within the wider context of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks against Israel.
The U.S., France, the U.K. and other allies have called for a 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, even as the prospect of any such agreement appears less and less likely.
The assassination of Nasrallah by Israel represents another new development in the conflict that has spread across the Middle East region since October.
The recent exchanges of fire and Israel’s preparations to invade southern Lebanon have raised fears that the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was headed toward all-out war.
Meanwhile, the IDF also said it had intercepted eight projectiles launched from Lebanon into Israel on Sunday, hitting open areas near Tiberias in Israel’s north.
The Israeli Defense Forces said in a statement on Telegram that their air forces had targeted weapons and military structures of the organization.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to Israel earlier than expected from his trip to the United Nations as Israel was said to be preparing for an invasion into southern Lebanon after reservists were called up to Israel’s north.