Hezbollah’s Highest-Ranking Official Vows Readiness To Continue Fighting Despite Leader’s Assassination
Hezbollah’s most senior surviving leader said on Monday that the group was still ready to fight a possible ground invasion by Israel’s military, days after an Israeli Air Force strike killed leader Hassan Nasrallah.
“We will face any possibility and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land and the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement”, said Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem in a televised address where he was seen wiping off sweat. “The Islamic resistance will continue confronting the Israeli enemy in support of Gaza and Palestine, and to defend Lebanon and its population, and in response to the assassinations and the killing of civilians”.
In the first public address made since the group’s confirmation of Nasrallah’s death, Qassem added that replacements for the secretary-general and other leaders killed would be made as soon as possible. “Be reassured that the options will be easy”.
The broadcast came a day after reports that Nasrallah’s body had been recovered from the underground bunker in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahieh. Two sources in Lebanon that spoke to Reuters claimed that the Hezbollah’s leader was intact with no direct wounds, suggesting that he had died as a result of blunt force trauma from the detonation of the Israeli “bunker buster” bombs used to destroy the bunker. Israel’s Channel 12, however, cited its own sources in reporting that Nasrallah died of asphyxiation from toxic gases, trapped inside the bunker following its destruction.
New Order
The Israeli Air Force officially claimed responsibility for the airstrike shortly after its conclusion on Friday, confirming that the goal of its “Operation New Order” was to kill Nasrallah. Photographs and videos released by the Air Force and comments from the squadron leader showed the strike was carried out by F-15Is of the Air Force’s 69th Squadron, the IAF’s sole unit operating the strike fighters.
One video showed seven F-15Is prepared for the strike, each equipped with seven 2,000 pound GBU-31V3 “bunker buster” munitions. Israeli officials that spoke to the New York Times claimed that over 80 bombs were used in the strike against the bunker that completely destroyed at least four apartment buildings built over it, but did not elaborate on the specific bombs used.
Nasrallah’s assassination appears to be the climax of the Israeli Air Force’s campaign to decapitate Hezbollah through a series of strikes on its senior leaders over the past two weeks. Alongside other senior Hezbollah commanders, the strike also killed Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, who had been in charge of the IRGC’s support for Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups in Lebanon.
Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have continued, with Hamas confirming that an airstrike in the early hours of Monday killed Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, the head of the organization’s branch in Lebanon, alongside his wife, son, and daughter.
Nasrallah’s Hezbollah
Nasrallah became leader of Hezbollah following the Israeli assassination of his predecessor in 1992. Under his leadership, Hezbollah became the strongest military force in Lebanon, with the crushing of the South Lebanon Army following the Israeli military’s 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon providing him and Hezbollah credibility through “ending” the Israeli occupation.
And while the Hezbollah ambush in Israeli territory that started the 2006 Lebanon War initially sparked criticism from other Arab leaders, indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling of Dahieh and southern Lebanon ultimately tipped popular opinion in favor of Hezbollah. Nasrallah’s public appearances reduced drastically following the end of the war, with the prevailing belief that he spent most of his time in a complex built under Dahieh as part of the suburb’s reconstruction.
Hezbollah’s star would be dimmed somewhat by its intervention in the Syrian Civil War on the side of Bashar al-Assad, with its involvement in brutal starvation sieges such as those of Zabadani and Madaya, and adoption of openly sectarian rhetoric justifying them damaging its popularity with Sunni Muslims.
Its participation in Israel’s war with Hamas after the October 7 attacks would again provide it with renewed popularity across the Sunni-Shia divide, with evacuations of communities along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon due to rocket attacks hailed as a victory even as Israel’s military tore through the Gaza Strip in a hunt for Hamas and surviving hostages taken by Hamas fighters.
Those attacks would ultimately seal the fate of Nasrallah and much of Hezbollah’s senior leadership, with the September 16 announcement by Israel’s war cabinet that an end to Hezbollah rocket attacks and the return of displaced Israeli civilians was now a war goal serving as a prelude to the Israeli Air Force’s decapitation campaign. This furthered the work of the widespread and complex Israeli intelligence operation which culminated in the detonation of small explosive charges hidden inside pagers and communications devices used by elements of Hezbollah’s leadership.
Lebanese Implications
The decapitation of the de facto strongest political force in Lebanon and its “state within a state” would seem to provide an opportunity for other political groups in Lebanon to regroup and perhaps stall the nation’s atrophy. But with much state capacity hollowed out by corruption, neglect and incompetence prior to the 2020 Beirut port explosion, and many opposition voices silenced by threats or assassination by Hezbollah, there is very little to work with, and even fewer who might be willing to accept appointment or election.
However, the true deciding factor for Lebanon’s future will be whether Israel launches a full-scale ground offensive into Lebanon. The World Food Program’s Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, Corinne Fleischer, warned on Sunday that “Lebanon is at a breaking point and cannot endure another war”, with the UN body’s current resources only capable of scaling to support one million displaced for one month.
Even if the odds of meaningful reform of the current Lebanese order were astronomically small, the country finally falling off the precipice is even less likely to bring about anything better without years or even decades of strife.