What will Nasrallah’s death mean for a hollowed-out Hezbollah? -Charlotte Lawson

Nasrallah joined Hezbollah in 1982, the year it was founded with the support of Iran amid the 15-year Lebanese civil war. One of the group’s first major operations was the suicide bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April 1983, which killed 63 people — including 17 Americans — and injured 120 others. Later that year, Hezbollah plotted a truck bomb attack on a U.S. Marine barracks near Beirut, killing 299 U.S. and French troops.

Nasrallah, a passionate speaker with close ties to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, took over Hezbollah in 1992 after Israel’s assassination of his predecessor Abbas al-Musawi. In 1994, Hezbollah ordered a suicide attack on a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 85 people. In 1996, it detonated explosives in an apartment building in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. service members and injuring more than 400 people.

During his time in office, Nasrallah built Hezbollah into a “state within a state,” with the group taking control of issues such as social security and security to consolidate power and support, especially in southern Lebanon, where the Shia majority prevails. He also systematically targeted his organization’s political rivals in the Lebanese government and, with the help of Iran, turned Hezbollah into a formidable paramilitary force.

As the largest and most capable arm of Iran’s “resistance axis” in the Middle East, the militants are not only fighting for Tehran but also recruiting other allies to its cause. “The Lebanese Hezbollah has always been in charge. Whenever the Iranians had to send troops to build resistance in the Middle East, they went to the Lebanese Hezbollah,” said Phillip Smyth, an analyst whose research focuses on Shiite militias. “They have always been Iran’s proxy. They have always been not just a proxy, but a directly involved element of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

After the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, Nasrallah intervened on behalf of brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad and ordered the massive deployment of Hezbollah fighters across Syria, at Iran’s direction. There, the Shiite militia helped Syrian government forces besiege and retake rebel-held towns and villages, often committing atrocities against local populations with impunity.

The US added Nasrallah to its list of specially designated global terrorists, largely because of his support for the Assad regime. Under his leadership, Hezbollah has also forged its vast transnational crime network, which includes enterprises such as arms smuggling, drug trafficking and human trafficking. It is one of the richest terrorist groups in the world, bringing in more than $1 billion a year.

“Hassan Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans during a forty-year reign of terror. His death as a result of an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese citizens,” President Joe Biden said in a statement on Saturday, reiterating US support for Israel’s self-defense. A few days earlier, Biden had called on Israel and Hezbollah to reach a ceasefire.

Like Hamas and Iran, Hezbollah under Nasrallah has committed itself to the cause of liberating the Middle East from Israel. A virulent anti-Semite, the cleric often gave fiery speeches calling for the end of the ‘Zionist’ entity. “If (the Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide,” he said in 2005. “If we were to search the whole world for a person who is more cowardly, more vile, weaker and weaker in mind, spirit, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Please note, I am not saying the Israeli,” he said on another occasion.

In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah went to war after the killing of eight Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of two – a cross-border attack that Nasrallah later regretted after a devastating month-long war. The conflict ended with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which mandated the demilitarization of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, but was never enforced by the Lebanese government or the international community.

In the years that followed, Nasrallah further entrenched his group in the communities of southern Lebanon and built up its arsenal in preparation for the next conflict, which began on October 8 when Hezbollah began firing on Israel following the Hamas invasion and massacre in southern Israel.

In theory, the continued low-level attacks would have demonstrated Hezbollah’s support for another member of the Iranian axis, while slowly eroding Israel’s defenses and will to fight through a war of attrition. But Nasrallah appears to have underestimated Israel’s resolve. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has slowly escalated its attacks throughout the conflict, but especially over the past month when it turned its attention to the north while effectively destroying Hamas as a military body in Gaza.

In just weeks, a series of covert and military operations by Israel have decimated Hezbollah’s high command, culminating in Saturday’s attack on the group’s underground headquarters. In addition to killing Nasrallah, the operation – which included tightly coordinated attacks using more than 80 tons of ammunition to penetrate the bunker – killed other top figures in the terrorist organization, including Ibrahim Aqil, a senior commander of the elite Radwan forces, and southern front commander Ali Karaki, who survived an Israeli airstrike earlier this week.

And Israel’s attacks have continued in the days since. The IDF said an airstrike in Beirut on Saturday killed Nabil Kaouk, deputy head of Hezbollah’s executive council. The military has also hit arms smuggling routes in Lebanon and Syria and threatened to attack Beirut international airport if Iran uses it for arms transfers. Israeli officials continue to indicate that a ground invasion in southern Lebanon could be on the table to restore security to the border area.

What comes next remains unclear. As Hezbollah tries to regroup, Iranian officials have vowed to respond to the attack, which also killed a senior IRGC official. The Iran-backed Houthis have attempted to attack Israel in recent days, including firing a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv on Saturday, which was intercepted by air defenses.

But Israel’s increasingly aggressive approach complicates the picture. Nasrallah’s killing demonstrated his utmost intelligence and willingness to escalate, while massive airstrikes on the Yemeni ports of Hudaydah and Ras Isa on Sunday evening in retaliation for the Houthi attacks demonstrated his extensive reach. “We know how to reach very far, we know how to reach even further, and we know how to strike with precision,” IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said after the attacks in a thinly veiled threat against Tehran.

Given Nasrallah’s central role in shaping Hezbollah over the years and the elimination of most of its leadership, the direction the terror group will now take is uncertain. Some fear Israel has lost the “devil, you know” by killing its longtime leader. But for the victims of Nasrallah’s terrorist army, his death felt like justice.

“I am one of those people who suffered under Hezbollah and under Hassan Nasrallah,” said Kassim, who was expelled from her hometown of Homs, Syria, after Hezbollah’s military intervention during the civil war. “We’re just happy because the person who is the reason behind all this got what he deserves.”