The killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was a fearsome exhibition of Israeli intelligence and martial efficiency- as well as of Hezbollah complacency. But as tanks mass on the Lebanese border and the bombs fall on Beirut in what US officials believe will constitute a limited invasion, Israel is not marching towards a decisive victory, but further entanglement. And the incident captures Israel’s perennial incapacity in this conflict. In the year since October 7, Israel’s military has demonstrated its tremendous capacities for industrial destruction and technical assassination. It has simultaneously failed to achieve any strategic objectives – all while driving the region it calls home to the edge of war.
Nasrallah had been on Israel’s target list for years – they tried to bomb him on three occasions in 2006 alone. And he appears to have judged that Hezbollah could continue pressuring Israel to end its war in Gaza by firing rockets into its northern region without restraint. Israel’s retaliatory strikes on southern Lebanon far exceeded Hezbollah’s in number and lethality. But Nasrallah may have considered that a price worth paying. As in Gaza, he expected that the deaths and displacement of Lebanese civilians would provoke international condemnation and eventually compel Israel to end the war against Hamas, perhaps under pressure from a Biden administration worried about a wider war in the Middle East.
Hezbollah miscalculated – and Nasrallah paid with his life. First, Israel spurned Joe Biden’s proposal for a 21-day ceasefire. Next it set out to track and kill senior Hezbollah operatives, deploying its intelligence network to ruthless effect. Aman, Israel’s military intelligence, had worked diligently for at least a decade to acquire the ability to track the movements of Hezbollah’s top leaders and commanders by hacking their mobile phones and other devices, including those used by relatives. The scale of Israel’s subterfuge should have been evident to Hezbollah after the pager and walkie-talkie attacks on 18 and 19 September.
Yet, even after these losses, Hezbollah, which has always used stringent security measures to protect Nasrallah, inexplicably slipped up. Knowing that Israel has bunker-buster bombs (its own as well as those supplied by the US) it nevertheless allowed him to meet with senior Hezbollah’s commanders beneath its “central headquarters” in south Beirut. They should have realised the risks: on 30 July, an Israeli airstrike on Beirut had killed Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s leading military commander; the next day it killed Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh – in Tehran.
The killing of Nasrallah, along with at least 20 of Hezbollah’s senior commanders, therefore represents the crowning Israeli achievement in what was already something of a spree. Hezbollah’s wounds extend well beyond a decapitation. Hezbollah is now being drawn into direct conflict with one of the world’s strongest militaries without even a secure communication system. Its senior leaders and commanders can’t risk tasting fresh air for fear of assassination. And it is already on the back foot: it has been reported that Israeli commandos may already have crossed the border to lay the groundwork for a full invasion.
Hezbollah’s interim leader, Naim Qassem, claims they are “ready” for any attack. And though such fighting talk is contractually obliged for someone in his position, while Hezbollah is down, it is far from out. Hezbollah is an organised militia, not a cult of personality, with some of the trappings of a nation-state. Its process for selecting a new permanent leader is already underway, and the frontrunner appears to be Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s cousin and a member of Hezbollah’s Shura Council. Like Nasrallah he is a cleric trained in Qom, Iran, the centre of Shiite Islamic scholarship, and a black-turbaned Sayyid, claiming descent from the family of the Prophet Mohammed. Though Nasrallah’s leadership always had theocratic overtones, he is not irreplaceable.
And though Hezbollah’s leadership is rattled, it is has deep roots in Lebanese civic society. Though scarcely loved by its citizens, in particular the Christians and Sunni Muslims, it is a grassroots movement with popular support. While many Lebanese will blame it for having exposed them to a devastating Israeli attack – one million of them, nearly a fifth of Lebanon’s population, have already been displaced and scores killed – others will direct their anger at Israel. Hezbollah has tens of thousands of soldiers, including reservists, many of them battle-hardened. A force of this depth will be very difficult to shift, even from southern Lebanon.
After Nasrallah was killed, Hezbollah fired rockets at Safed in northern Israel – where sirens also wailed, warning against intrusions by the group’s drones – and even towards Jerusalem. The intensity of these attacks may diminish, but they are unlikely to let up, and unless they do, Netanyahu won’t be able to make the north safe enough for displaced Israelis to return in confidence. The only way that Israel can end the threat from Hezbollah is by devastating airpower combined with a succcessful invasion. But sending the IDF into southern Lebanon at a time when Israel is still battling Hamas in Gaza would amount to a gamble.
Israel clearly has an extensive understanding of Hezbollah’s structures, movements and communications – reportedly to the point of being able to listen to Hezbollah operatives through the microphones of their TV remote controls. But a war of conquest or occupation is another matter. If the outcomes of the 1982-2000 and 2006 campaigns are anything to go by, any attempt will prove costly, bloody – and unsuccessful. And should Israel get sucked into another military quagmire Nasrallah will have his posthumous victory: a distraction that diminishes Israel’s capacity to continue the war in Gaza.
For Iran, Hezbollah’s mentor and patron, Israel’s killing of Nasrallah and the group’s other senior operatives is both a major embarrassment and a strategic setback. The major remaining question is therefore how they will respond, especially given that the Israeli airstrikes that targeted Nasrallah also killed Brigadier General Abbas Nilforushan, deputy commander for operations in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), whose Quds Force has long equipped and trained Hezbollah. Nilforushan’s killing comes barely two months after Israel’s assassination of Haniyeh while he was attending the inauguration of the new Iranian president. And Israel is also now directly engaging Iran’s other main proxy, the Houthis in Yemen.
With its allies and therefore its regional influence under simultaneous attack, Iran is under immense pressure. But it must also look to its own domestic survival. Tehran has long feared that Netanyahu and hawkish parts of the United States military believe that Israel’s long-term future is incompatible with Iran’s, and that only a final day of reckoning can fix that problem—the more so because they believe Iran remains determined to build nuclear weapons.
Furthermore, Iran can’t strike Israel with anything like the refinement of Mossad. Another wave of missiles parried by Israel and its allies, as Iran’s last attack amounted to, would only look impotent by comparison. Iran will of course denounce Israel, organise street demonstrations, and perhaps resort to limited shows of force aimed at saving face. But, while it’s premature to predict what Iran will do, it’s worth recalling that it refrained from reprisals after both Haniyeh’s assassination and the U.S. drone strike that killed General Qasem Soleimani in January 2020.
Ultimately, Israel’s battles with the Iran and its network only orbit the axial site of this conflagration: the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu can run a victory lap for the losses he has inflicted on Hezbollah. But as disruptive as they have been, Hezbollah’s rocket salvos were a minor challenge compared to the continuing war in the south. Hamas still refuses to accept a ceasefire on Israel’s terms. And the war otherwise shows no sign of ending with Hamas’s destruction – the goal Netanyahu clings to even though senior officials in Israel’s intelligence and military establishments, current and past, have recognised for some months that it is beyond reach.
Nasrallah’s death won’t make Netanyahu’s objective in Gaza any easier to achieve because Hamas’s ability to stay in the fight has never depended on the pressure Hezbollah has been putting on Israel. And if Netanyahu decides to mount a ground invasion of southern Lebanon with the intent of finishing crippling Hezbollah, he will have taken a momentous step that could benefit Hamas, not only militarily but also politically. The added deaths, destruction, and displacements will expose an already isolated Israel to even more criticism worldwide – perhaps to the point of inducing the United States to rethink the near unconditional support it has given Netanyahu since October 7.
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