Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary-General of Hezbollah, the Lebanese pro-Iranian Shia Islamist political group, addresses the crowd on a big screen during a mass rally in 2022. (Photo by Marwan Naamani/picture alliance via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Lebanese group Hezbollah today confirmed that longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike, a momentous development for the region and a significant escalation in Israel’s conflict with Iran-backed groups there.
Hezbollah said on Saturday that Nasrallah, who has led the group since 1992, “has joined his great and immortal comrades.”
Israel Defense Forces posted online today, “Hassan Nasrallah will no longer be able to terrorize the world.” It also posted a Hezbollah organizational chart with “Eliminated” banners over more than a dozen senior members, including Nasrallah, adding, “We searched up ‘dismantled’ on the internet, this is the picture that came up.”
Israel said other senior members of the organization were killed in the same strike Friday that took Nasrallah’s life, and today Iran said one of its key generals was also killed.
It’s unclear what effect Nasrallah’s death with have on an already incredibly volatile situation. Hezbollah vowed to continue the fight, but with so many senior leaders taken out, it’s unclear what capacity the group has to do so.
Another open question is how Iran might respond. Analysts previously told Breaking Defense that Tehran appeared to be willing to let Hezbollah face Israel alone as it wasn’t in their strategic interest to get involved — but, they warned, that calculus only works if Hezbollah is not on the verge of complete destruction, at which point Iran could feel compelled to step in.
In a statement in Iranian press today, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei condemned the Israeli strike but did not mention Nasrallah by name. Instead he said that all the “resistance” forces in the region are “with Hezbollah and support it.”
Follow Breaking Defense’s full coverage of the region:
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