Israel ‘on a high’ after Nasrallah killing, as mood for an invasion grows

Confident amid successes against Hezbollah, Israel’s public is increasingly in favour of deepening the war in Lebanon.

Israel has largely been fractured over the past year, divided over what went wrong during the Hamas-led attack on October 7, what the priorities of its war on Gaza should be, and whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the right man to lead the country.

But the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut last Friday has provided Netanyahu with a major win, say analysts, and has united many of Israel’s politicians – and its public. That ballast for Netanyahu is likely to encourage Israel to push forward with a ground war on Hezbollah and Lebanon, according to some experts.

Opposition leaders have lined up to salute the killing of Nasrallah, carried out by a barrage of bunker-buster bombs that levelled several large residential buildings.

Yair Lapid, a former prime minister and the current leader of the opposition, congratulated the Israeli military and said that Israel’s enemies should “know that whoever attacks Israel is a son of death”. And Benny Gantz, a rival of Netanyahu’s who stepped down as a war cabinet minister in June, called the killing “a matter of justice” that was an opportunity to “advance the war’s objectives”.