Hyderabad: As Israel Army claims to have killed Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a massive airstrike on Beirut on Friday, the high profile assassination has sent shockwaves in the war-torn country especially the Hezbollah cadres, who see Nasrallah as a father figure. Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) Spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani wrote in a brief post on X, “Hassan Nasrallah is dead”. However, Hezbollah was yet to issue a statement over the outfit leader's alleged killing.
Let us have a look at Hassan Nasrallah's journey from a low profile vegetable vendor's son to heading the Hezbollah.
Nasrallah holds the title of Sayyed, an honorific meant to signify the Shia cleric's lineage dating back to the Prophet Muhammad. The leader of Lebanon's militant Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement, Nasrallah is one of the best known and most influential figures in the Middle East.
Born in 1960, Hassan Nasrallah grew up in Beirut's eastern Bourj Hammoud, an impoverished neighbourhood of Beirut. where his father Abdul Karim ran a small green grocers. He was the eldest of nine children. He is married to Fatima Yassin and they have four surviving children.
"He studied religious sciences for three years in the seminaries of Najaf, Iraq, before being expelled in 1978 when Saddam Hussein cracked down on Shia activists," It was in Iraq that he met his political mentor Abbas al-Musawi.
Hezbollah was formed in June 1982 in response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon over attacks by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). But before he took over the reins of Hezbollah from Musawi, Nasrallah gained experience in the ranks of the Lebanese Resistance Regiments (Amal Movement).
The Rise Of Nasrallah
He became leader of Hezbollah in 1992 at the age of 32, after his predecessor Abbas al-Musawi was assassinated in an Israeli helicopter strike.
One of his first actions was to retaliate to the killing of Musawi. He ordered rocket attacks into northern Israel that killed a girl, an Israeli security officer at the Israeli embassy in Turkey was killed by a car bomb and a suicide bomber struck the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 29 people.
He steered Hezbollah's evolution from a militia founded to fight Israeli troops occupying Lebanon into a military force stronger than the Lebanese army, a powerbroker in Lebanese politics, a major provider of health, education and social services, and a key part of its backer Iran's drive for regional supremacy.
Since taking over Hezbollah in 1992, Nasrallah has been the face and driving force behind the organisation.
He called for the "liberation" of Jerusalem, and refers to Israel as "Zionist entity", advocating that all Israelis should return to their countries of origin, and that "there should be one Palestine with equality for Muslims, Jews and Christians"
A shrewd political and military leader, Nasrallah has extended the influence of Hezbollah beyond Lebanon's borders. Outside the country, Hezbollah acts like a militia.
Nasrallah, with Iran's help, has also defeated leadership challenges within Hezbollah.
In 1997, former Hezbollah leader Sheikh Subhi Tufayli led an uprising against Nasrallah, but his men disarmed the rebels.
Role In Syrian Civil War
In 2013 Nasrallah declared that Hezbollah was entering "a completely new phase" of its existence by sending of fighters into Syria to help its Iran-backed ally, President Bashar al-Assad, put down a rebellion. "It is our battle, and we are up to it," Lebanese Sunni leaders accused Hezbollah of dragging the country into Syria's war and sectarian tensions worsened dramatically.
How Nasrallah Became A Hero After Wars With Israel
Under Nasrallah's leadership, Hezbollah has helped train fighters from the Palestinian armed group Hamas, as well as militias in Iraq and Yemen, and obtained missiles and rockets from Iran for use against Israel.
Wars with Israel and the 2006 Israel Withdrawal from Lebanon earned him a hero worship across the Middle East: His status rose and was further cemented in 2006 when Hezbollah fought Israel to a stalemate during the 34-day war.
Wars with Israel that has cemented Nasrallah's standing in the Arab world.
Under his lead, Hezbollah played a key role in ending Israel's 30-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.
He became a hero in Middle Eastern countries after declaring "divine victory" against Israel after 34 days of war in 2006.
Following the withdrawal Nasrallah proclaimed that Hezbollah had achieved the first Arab victory against Israel. He also vowed that Hezbollah would not disarm, saying that it considered that "all Lebanese territory must be restored", including the Shebaa Farms area.
After the war, Nasrallah reached a small town, Bint Jbeil, close to the Israeli border and delivered one of the most prominent speeches of his career.
"Nasrallah claimed that Israel was 'weak as spider’s web' despite its nuclear weapons," he told the Arab world and the "oppressed people of Palestine"
The 2006 victory won Nasrallah the respect of many ordinary Arabs who had grown up watching Israel defeat their armies, according to a Reuters report.
Son's 'Sacrifice'
Being the Hezbollah chief isn't Nasrallah's only identity. He is also known as Abu Hadi or Father of Hadi, after his eldest son who died fighting Israeli soldiers in 1997. Hadi was all of 18 when he was killed in a firefight.
Previous Assassination Attempts On Nasrallah
In April 2006, three months before the devastating summer war between Israel and Hezbollah — the Lebanese paper As Safir reported that the 12 people had plotted to assassinate Nasrallah on his way to national reconciliation talks.
On 15 July, 2006, Nasrallah emerged unscathed from an Israeli airstrike on his home and office in the Lebanese capital. ---Later in 2009 Former IDF chief of general staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz revealed that Israel attempted to assassinate Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah during the Second Lebanon War in 2006. "In the Second Lebanon War there was an attempt to hit Hizbullah leader Hassan Nassralah, but it wasn't successful.
In 2008 Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah denied an Iraqi website report that he had been poisoned and then saved by Iranian doctors, calling it “psychological warfare” against his group.“This information is totally unfounded,” he said.
Key Hezbollah Leaders Assassinated By Israel
- 26.09.2024: Mohammed Srur: An Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on killed the head of Hezbollah’s drone unit, the militant group and the Israeli military said. The Israeli military earlier said in a statement that its fighter jets had “targeted and eliminated” Mr. Srur, identifying him as “the commander of Hezbollah’s air unit”. Hezbollah said in a statement that the strike killed Mohammed Srur, who was born in 1973.
- 25.09.2024: Ibrahim Muhammad Qubaisi: Hezbollah confirmed that Ibrahim Muhammad Qubaisi had been killed in a post on Telegram hours after the Israeli military said he had been “eliminated” in an air strike on Ghobeiri in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
- 20.09.2024 : Ibrahim Aqil: An Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs killed Hezbollah's operations commander Ibrahim Aqil, who serves on the group's top military body, on Sept. 20.
- Aqil, who has also used the aliases Tahsin and Abdelqader, is a member of Hezbollah's top military body, the Jihad Council.The United States accuses him of a role in the Beirut truck bombings that struck the American embassy in April 1983, which killed 63 people, and the US Marine barracks six months later which killed 241 people.
- 30.07.2024: Fuad Shukr: An Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Lebanon's capital Beirut, killed Hezbollah's top commander Fuad Shukr, identified by the Israeli military as the right-hand man of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.Shukr was one of Hezbollah's leading military figures since it was established by Iran's Revolutionary Guards more than four decades ago.The United States imposed sanctions on Shukr in 2015 and accused him of playing a central role in the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 U.S. military personnel.
- 03.07.2024: Mohammed Nasser: Mohammed Nasser was killed in an Israeli airstrike. Nasser, a senior commander in Hezbollah, was responsible for a section of Hezbollah's operations at the frontier, according to senior security sources in Lebanon. Israel claimed responsibility, saying he headed a unit responsible for firing from southwestern Lebanon at Israel.
- 12.06.2024: Taleb Aballah: Senior Hezbollah field commander Abdallah was killed in a strike claimed by Israel, which said it had hit a command and control centre in southern Lebanon.Security sources in Lebanon said he was Hezbollah's commander for the central region of the southern border strip and was of the same rank as Nasser.His killing prompted the group to fire a massive barrage of rockets across the border at Israel.
- 15.05.2024: Hussein Makki, a senior commander in Hezbollah’s Southern Front unit, was killed in an Israeli drone strike near Tyre. Makki previously commanded Hezbollah’s coastal division and facilitated several attacks against Israel.
- 31.03.2024: Ismail Al Zin, senior commander in the anti-tank missile unit of Hezbollah’s Radwan unit, was killed by an Israeli warplane in the village of Kounine.
- 29.03.2024: Ali Abed Akhsan Naim, the deputy commander of Hezbollah’s rocket and missiles unit, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Bazourieh.
- Jan. 9, 2024: Ali Hussein Burji, the Hezbollah aerial force commander in southern Lebanon, was killed in an Israeli drone strike near the town of Khirbet Selm.
- 08.01.2024: Wissam Hassan Al Tawil, a senior commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan unit, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the village of Majdel Selm.
- 12.02.2008 : Imad Mughniyeh: Hezbollah's then-military chief Imad Mughniyeh was killed by a car bombin Damascus in 2008, apparently in an operation planned by the Mossad and the CIA.
- 16.02.1992: Abbas Al-Musawi: Hezbollah Secretary General Abbas al-Musawi was killed when IDF helicopters of Israel attacked his convoy with missiles while traveling in southern Lebanon. As a result of the attack, Musawi was killed along with six other people including his wife and son. Musawi, who served as Hezbollah’s secretary-general from 1991 until his assassination.
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