Israel targets the head of Hizbullah in a deadly strike on Beirut
Editor’s note: On September 28th Israel claimed to have killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah. The militant group later confirmed his death.
IN HIS SPEECH to the United Nations General Assembly on September 27th Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, put paid to the speculation that a truce might soon be declared between Israel and Hizbullah, the Iran-backed Shia movement that controls much of Lebanon. Or, as Mr Netanyahu described it, “the quintessential terror organisation in the world today”.
The American and French governments had been urging both sides to accept a 21-day truce that would provide a window for negotiations over a more lasting ceasefire, ending the year-long conflict that has depopulated both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border. “We won’t rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes. We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border,” Mr Netanyahu said.
Minutes after he stepped down from the UN podium in New York, 9,000km away Israeli fighter-jets dropped several heavy “bunker-busting” bombs on the Dahiyeh neighbourhood of Beirut. The attack killed an estimated 300 people, destroyed a number of residential buildings and caused a series of intense underground explosions beneath them. Israel announced it had targeted Hizbullah’s “central headquarters”. The death toll is not yet confirmed but in private, Israeli officials were hopeful that they had killed Hassan Nasrallah, who has been Hizbullah’s secretary-general since 1992. In his long years as leader he had evaded previous assassination attempts by Israel. It is not yet clear whether he has survived the latest (sources close to Hizbullah claim that he is still alive, but the group has not produced a picture of him and Israeli sources say they think it is likely that he was killed). Either way, it is a devastating escalation by Israel that could lead Hizbullah to unleash its arsenal of long-range missiles in retaliation at Israel’s cities.
The previous morning, American and French diplomats had been talking about an imminent truce. The main drag of Nahariya, a coastal city in Israel 8km from its border with Lebanon, was packed with shoppers and coffee-drinkers. Farmers were working in fields and vineyards overshadowed by the slopes of Lebanon, though their families remained in the south after being evacuated nearly a year ago.
The pastoral illusion was short-lived. Shortly after 9am local time reports came that the Israeli air force had bombed Hizbullah rocket-launchers in Tyre, a city on the Lebanese side of the border. But Hizbullah still had plenty of weapons. An hour later they were landing once again in northern Israel, including the border town of Kiryat Shmona where council leaders from areas in the north had gathered to denounce the ceasefire. The mayor of Kiryat Shmona, 90% of whose residents have fled, was adamant they would not return until “the other side will not dare to open fire again. We want to hear Nasrallah himself say he regrets firing on us.”
Ministers in Mr Netanyahu’s cabinet and leaders of opposition parties openly opposed the prospect of a ceasefire too. They demanded that Israel continue to pile pressure on Hizbullah, pushing the advantage created by a series of Israeli attacks over the past ten days: detonating thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hizbullah members; assassinating senior commanders; and bombing missile launchers and caches.
Mr Netanyahu, who had originally given his blessing to the ceasefire negotiations, responded to the political pressure at home and denied that he had given his blessing to the American-French proposal. This incurred the wrath of the Biden administration, forcing him to issue another “clarification” saying that “Israel shares the aims of the US-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes.”
Mr Nasrallah had previously repeatedly said that Hizbullah would carry on firing on Israel in support of Hamas for as long as the war in Gaza continued. Until Mr Netanyahu’s latest intervention, Israel had seemed to suggest that a basic ceasefire with Hizbullah, which would decouple the Gaza and Lebanon fronts, would suffice. But Israel’s recent successes in landing its series of humiliating blows on Hizbullah has created an opportunity which its leaders, including its generals, believe will allow it to achieve more.
Israel reckons it is on the way to realising three objectives. It is on the verge of eliminating Hizbullah’s military leadership; it is in the process of destroying a significant proportion of its massive missile arsenal (though much still remains); and it is poised to launch a ground offensive that would clear the border area from Hizbullah fortifications. Achieving these goals would ensure, insist Israeli generals, that Israeli civilians would be able to return safely to their homes. To reinforce the seriousness of their intentions, Israel’s army has announced the call-up of extra reserve brigades and the deployment of its forces to the north.
There has been no decision to invade, nor is one likely in the coming days. But Israel is making clear that it is prepared to risk further escalation unless a better ceasefire agreement, from its perspective, is offered. Going back to UN Resolution 1701, which was passed to end the 2006 war and which requires Hizbullah to withdraw 30km from the border “isn’t enough”, says a senior Israeli officer; “We need a mechanism that will ensure this time Hizbullah is nowhere near the border and the only force there is the Lebanese Army.”
But the attack on Dahiyeh may prove to be the provocation Hizbullah needed to launch rockets at central Israel. So far, it has only fired one such missile towards Tel Aviv and that was intercepted by Israel’s missile-defence system. Shortly after the bombs in Beirut, Hizbullah fired rockets towards northern Israel but much more can surely be expected. Until now the Iranians, Hizbullah’s patrons who invested billions in building up their arsenal, have urged restraint. The missiles were supplied to deter Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear installations, not to be used in a local conflict. But the direct attack on the group’s Beirut headquarters, and the possibility that it may have killed Mr Nasrallah, may leave Hizbullah, and indeed Iran, with little choice but to respond in kind, plunging the region into all-out war. ■
Sign up to the Middle East Dispatch, a weekly newsletter that keeps you in the loop on a fascinating, complex and consequential part of the world.