How will Hezbollah chief Nasrallah’s killing impact West Asia? Premium

Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah chief, killing: Why is the assassination of the Hezbollah Secretary-General significant? Why is Israel pounding Lebanon? What is the reason for taking on Hezbollah? What is the status in Gaza? Why is Israel looking beyond its borders?

The story so far: It’s been almost a year since the latest Gaza war began. And now, Israel has shifted its focus towards its northern border with Lebanon. Over the past week, Israel has carried out massive bombardments in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, killing at least 700 people and displacing more than 1,00,000. Among the dead was Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary-General of Hezbollah, according to the Israeli military.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah killing in Beirut: LIVE updates

The air strikes followed explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon, which hit hundreds of Hezbollah fighters. Hezbollah, in retaliation, fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, including a ballistic missile which was intercepted over Tel Aviv. The U.S. and France called for a ceasefire, but Israel quickly ruled out the proposal. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says his army will continue to fight “until meeting its objectives” in Lebanon, and achieving “total victory” against Hamas in Gaza.

The Hezbollah was formed as a Shia resistance organisation in 1982, with help from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in the aftermath of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in the same year. Israel sent troops to Lebanon to force the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) out of the country. While Israel managed to force the PLO to relocate from Lebanon to Tunisia, and carved a buffer in southern Lebanon, the war led to the rise of militant Shia resistance, which turned out to be a long-term security challenge for Israel. The Shia community had historically been marginalised in Lebanon where power was divided between the Maronite Christians (for whom the Presidency was reserved) and Sunnis (Premiership). The Shias reorganised themselves under Hezbollah, which built a sprawling political, military and social network that’s deeply entrenched in Lebanon’s state and society. The group has a political party which has parliamentarians, a social wing that caters to the lower strata of society, and a powerful military unit, backed by Iran, which has fighters and short, medium and long-range missiles.

The raison d’etre of Hezbollah is resistance against Israel. Destruction of “the Zionist entity” has been one of the goals mentioned in Hezbollah’s manifesto. The group, which is termed a terrorist organisation by both Israel and the U.S., takes credit for forcing Israel to end its occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, 18 years after it invaded Lebanon. Last time Israel and Hezbollah fought a full-scale war was in 2006 when Israel invaded Lebanon after a Hezbollah cross-border raid. The trigger for the latest flare-up was the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed. When Israel launched its retaliatory war on Gaza, Hezbollah started firing rockets into Israel “in solidarity with the Palestinians”. In response, Israel started bombing Lebanon. Ever since, a slow-burning war continued to rage on the Israel-Lebanon border, which displaced some 70,000 Israelis from the border region. The escalation came on July 30 when Israel killed Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander, in an air strike in Beirut. Hezbollah stepped up its rocket attacks. Earlier this month, Israel said enabling the displaced citizens to go back to their homes is one of the objectives of the war. Then came the pager explosions, which were followed by air strikes.

Israel sees Hezbollah as a mortal enemy. Hezbollah’s weapons include Fateh ballistic missiles with a range of 250 km and Sayyad surface-to-surface missiles (up to 100 km) and C-802 anti-ship missiles (120 km). It also has anti-tank missiles, artillery rockets and tens of thousands of short range rockets such as Bukan, Katyusha, Falaq and Almas. In terms of conventional might, this may not be a match for Israel. An undeclared nuclear power, Israel is the most powerful military force in West Asia, which enjoys the support and protection of the U.S., the world’s most powerful country. But Hezbollah is not a conventional force. It’s a highly armed guerrilla army with conventional weapons and asymmetric tactics, which had hurt Israel in the past. Since 2006, Hezbollah has rebuilt its weapons stocks many times more. But Hezbollah’s response to Israel’s attacks have so far been limited. Hezbollah, either by conscious decision or by limitations, chose to fire short-range rockets into Israel in response to the air strikes. But the assassination of Nasrallah, which Hezbollah has confirmed, is the heaviest blow yet. Nasrallah is credited to have built Hezbollah to what it is today.

After almost a year of fighting in Gaza, Israel has not met any of its declared objectives — the decimation of Hamas and the release of the hostages. Israeli troops have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and turned the enclave into an open refugee camp. Israel is practically stuck in the Gaza quagmire — without something that can be shown to the public as ‘victory’, Mr. Netanyahu, on whose watch the October 7 attack unfolded, can’t end the war. If he ends the war through a ceasefire deal with Hamas, his government could collapse (his far-right allies have threatened to withdraw their support). But Hezbollah says as long as the Gaza war goes on, it would fire rockets into Israel. Mr. Netanyahu can’t accept a ceasefire in Gaza, but wants to stop the Hezbollah attacks. Faced with no easy solutions, Israel decided to escalate the conflict with Hezbollah. Israel wants to degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities, and turn them away from the border region. The fire power Israel used over the past week can be comparable to Israel’s bombing of the Egyptian air force in 1967. Israel also carried out targeted air strikes at Hezbollah leaders, killing at least four commanders besides Nasrallah.