As a ten-year-old boy, the future Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah would wrap his grandmother’s long, black scarf around his head to emulate the Shia clerics he saw on television. His father sold fruit and vegetables in an impoverished suburb of eastern Beirut, but Nasrallah – who was killed on 27 September in Beirut in an Israeli air strike – believed he was destined to be a leader. As he explained in a 2006 interview with the American journalist Robin Wright, even as a child he used to tell his family: “I’m a cleric, you need to pray behind me.”
Nasrallah’s path to Hezbollah ran through a series of Shia seminaries in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. In 1975, when he was 15, Nasrallah’s family fled Beirut during Lebanon’s civil war and resettled near the southern city of Tyre, where a cleric encouraged him to continue his religious education in Iraq. There, he met the future leader of Hezbollah, Abbas al-Musawi, and the pair returned to Lebanon together in 1978 after Saddam Hussein expelled hundreds of Shia Muslims from Iraq. Nasrallah continued to study under Al-Musawi. After Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 he joined a Shia militant group that evolved, with training and weaponry from Iran, into Hezbollah, or the “Party of God”.
“We reached a conclusion that we cannot rely on the Arab League states, nor on the United Nations,” Nasrallah explained to Wright. “The only way that we have is to take up arms and fight the occupation forces.” Nasrallah established a reputation as a capable guerrilla commander, and continued his religious studies in Iran as the fighting allowed. Hezbollah soon expanded its operations to include foreign targets, pioneering the use of large-scale suicide bombings in the modern era with alleged involvement in attacks on a US Marine barracks and the US embassy in Beirut in 1983 and 1984, killing more than 300 people. When Al-Musawi was killed in 1992 in an Israeli helicopter attack, Nasrallah took over as Hezbollah’s leader.
Then as now, there were celebrations in Israel over the assassination of a loathed adversary. Then, too, there was speculation as to whether Hezbollah would survive, and no clear heir. Nasrallah, 31 at the time of Al-Musawi’s death, lacked the qualifications of his mentor. But over the next three decades he demonstrated shrewd instincts and a ruthless approach to power as he led Hezbollah from a guerrilla network to a political force in Lebanon and the world’s most heavily armed militia. Nasrallah developed a devoted following among Lebanon’s marginalised Shia Muslims, providing schools, housing and social services – thanks to funding from Iran – where the country’s weak central government could not, and winning seats for the group’s political wing in parliament. Hezbollah became known as a “state within a state” – or, as some commentators quipped, a “state within a non-state”. He also broadened the group’s base by declining to impose hard-line Islamic rules, such as veils for women.
Nasrallah was known among his supporters for his charismatic speeches, which he delivered with a noticeable lisp, often interspersing his fiery trades against Israel and the US with humour. At the height of his popularity, following the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War, Nasrallah’s face appeared on billboards, bumper stickers and key rings, and excerpts of his speeches were used as ringtones. He was also seen as a leader who had made personal sacrifices for the cause. His eldest son, Hadi, was killed in a firefight with Israeli troops aged 18, and Nasrallah was often referred to as Abu Hadi, or “father of Hadi”.
But perhaps Nasrallah’s greatest talent was presenting Hezbollah’s wars as great strategic victories, when in fact they ended in stalemate and suffering. When Israel finally withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon in 2000 after an 18-year campaign, for instance, Nasrallah delivered a derisory speech mocking his opponent’s capabilities: “[Israel] has a nuclear weapon and the strongest air force in the region. But in truth, it is weaker than a spider’s web.” Six years later, when Israeli troops pulled out of Lebanon once again after a 34-day war, which began after Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, Nasrallah staged a rally, dubbed a “festival of victory”, near the war-damaged headquarters of the organisation’s stronghold in Beirut. “No army in the world is strong enough to disarm us,” he told the cheering crowd. He congratulated his supporters on a “divine, historic and strategic victory” over not just Israel, but also the US. In a 2008 poll, he was named the most admired leader in the Arab world.
In reality, Nasrallah was the leader of a brutal terrorist organisation and responsible for the deaths of countless civilians in what President Joe Biden has called a “four-decade reign of terror”. His decision to send Hezbollah fighters to Syria to shore-up Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorial regime during the country’s civil war, which began in 2011, alienated many supporters. Hezbollah forces were accused of torturing Sunni Muslims and helping to besiege rebel-held areas as part of the government’s “surrender or starve” strategy. Footage emerged of people dancing in the streets in Idlib, the country’s last rebel stronghold, in response to the news of Nasrallah’s death.
The response in Lebanon has been mixed. While Nasrallah insisted he was defending the country against Israeli attack, he was also holding it hostage. Hezbollah’s standing has been diminished by the financial crisis that has gripped Lebanon since 2019, and by accusations that the group was complicit in the 2020 Beirut port explosion, where hundreds of tonnes of ammonium nitrate had been stored (Nasrallah denied this). Roughly 80 per cent of Lebanon’s citizens now live in poverty. This has led to widespread protests, including against Nasrallah. As Hezbollah has increased the range and intensity of its strikes on northern Israel over the past year, in solidarity with Hamas, there has been growing concern that the militia is leading the country into another all-out war, the devastating costs of which would, once again, be borne by Lebanese civilians.
Nasrallah did not build Hezbollah with his bare hands and forceful oratory. The group owes much of its military strength and formidable resources to the Islamic regime in Iran, which has allegedly trained and equipped Hezbollah’s fighters and helped finance Nasrallah’s political campaigns. Hezbollah has long functioned as the crown jewel of Tehran’s “axis of resistance” – the network of proxies that spans Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen and other armed groups in Iraq and Syria – whose purpose is to serve as the front line of Iran’s “forward defence”. Nasrallah’s demise has not altered that calculation. The question is how soon Iran and Hezbollah’s surviving leadership can rebuild the organisation, and what steps they might take in the interim, as Israel begins a ground invasion in Lebanon.
Nasrallah was one of the region’s most significant figures in decades, and he will not be easily replaced. Killing him and destroying much of Hezbollah’s high command is unquestionably a tactical victory for Israel. But we will soon find out if there is another Nasrallah waiting to take his place. The one certainty is that the first order of business for the next Hezbollah leader – and his backers in Iran – will be retaliation.
[See also: Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis: What is Zionism?]
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This article appears in the 02 Oct 2024 issue of the New Statesman, The fury of history