By Charles Deregnaucourt
At around 2.30 pm on Saturday September 28th, Hezbollah officially announced the death of its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, its leader since 1992.
Assassinations make up a salient part of Lebanon’s modern history, leaving its communities orphaned and society torn on multiple occasions. For the Druze, it was Kamal Jumblatt’s murder in 1977; the Maronites, Bachir Gemayel in 1982; for the Sunnis, Rafiq Al-Hariri in 2005. Now, Shia and non-Shia Hezbollah supporters alike face the same chaos and distress their countrymen once did.
Hezbollah, meaning the party of god in Arabic, is an Iran-backed Shi’ite militia and political organization founded in 1982 after the Israeli invasion in June of that same year. Hezbollah in its entirety is recognized as a terror group by countries such as the United States, UK and Germany, while other international entities – like the EU – condemn only Hezbollah’s military wing, legitimizing its political one.
Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire across the southern border, since October 8th of last year, when the militia launched a missile barrage in support of its Gazan ally, Hamas. For nearly a year since, there had been daily exchanges of rockets, missiles and artillery fire. Israeli jets even penetrated deep into Lebanese airspace, often breaking the sound barrier above Beirut—a basic intimidation tactic. Nasrallah had aimed for an open-ended yet restricted border conflict, preserving the axis of resistance’s integrity whilst avoiding escalation.
Hezbollah and Israel’s unwritten agreement for limited warfare lasted until July 27th when the former overshot its target, an Israeli army base near Mount Hermon. The strike killed 12 children on a football pitch in Majdal Shams, a Druze Arab town in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Though the Lebanese militia were quick to deny any responsibility in the matter, the mistake enabled a harsher turn in Netanyahu’s then low-intensity war on the group. The Jewish State’s assassination of Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr just three days later would prove to be the start of a total war on the organization. Since then, recent developments have effectively turned the conflict on its head.
Israel’s first operation on Tuesday the 27th of September hit Hezbollah hard when it simultaneously detonated some 3,000 pagers in Lebanon and Syria. Israel’s Mossad allegedly planted up to three grams of explosives inside 5,000 Taiwan-made, Gold Apollo-branded AR-924 pagers. The senior Lebanese security source said the pagers, brought into the country just earlier this year, were ordered by the Tehran-backed group. The following day, September 18th, Hezbollah-owned walkie-talkies exploded in offices, homes and even at a funeral. Altogether, these two days of blasts killed 37, including Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar’s son. At least two children were killed and 3,000 people maimed, including the Iranian ambassador in Beirut. On Wednesday, nearly 350 people remained in intensive care, some blinded, others missing fingers or severely wounded at the hip where the devices were likely worn.
Israel’s greatest hit to Hezbollah’s internal structure in decades however, was Nasrallah’s assassination on September 27th in the southern Beirut, Shi’ite majority neighborhood of Dahiyeh. An Israeli Air Force video captioned “Air force planes eliminating Hasan Nasrallah and the Hezbollah headquarters in Lebanon” showed eight F-15 planes fitted with at least sixteen BLU-109s each. These 2,000-pound-class bombs were designed to cut through six feet of reinforced concrete. The quick succession of dozens of munitions targeting command HQ, described as daisy chaining, are a common decapitation tactic when paired with bombs of this class.
The Lebanese Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties, declared 33 killed and 195 injured. Ali Karki, the commander of the group’s southern front, was also among those killed in the blasts.
After Abbas Al-Musawi’s death in February 1992, it was Nasrallah who made Hezbollah 2.0 the powerful, organized entity it was until a few weeks ago. Nasrallah’s assassination is undoubtedly the most devastating blow to the organization in its whole history. Hezbollah’s successor will find it “virtually impossible to fill [his] shoes”; those of a charismatic and widely lauded leader, who’s leadership secured the paramilitary force victory against Israel in 2006—and along with it, many Lebanese citizens’ respect. After Nasrallah’s death, his maternal cousin, Hachem Saffiedine – head of the executive council of Hezbollah and only suitable candidate – was selected to succeed him. The latest developments however, suggest that on October 4th, Safieddine was the target of an Israeli strike; according to CNN’s Lebanese security source, Hezbollah has since lost contact with the cleric. After the total decimation of its leadership, what the day after looks like for the Shi’ite organization couldn’t be more uncertain.
After Nasrallah’s assassination, another phase of Israel’s war on Hezbollah opened up late on Monday September 30th after the state launched its ground offensive into South Lebanon — the invasion having been preceded by secret cross-border raids over the past year. That same day, a few dozen towns south of the Litani river were told to evacuate north of the Awali River, and more recently on October 3rd, another twenty-or-so towns situated between both rivers were ordered to vacate the land. Attacks are currently being launched from two designated military zones in the north of Israel. For the moment, Hezbollah has reported clashes with Israel in three border towns, however details on how far the latter intends to send ground troops into Lebanon remain scarce. Lebanese citizens’ fear occupation, a rational concern considering Israel’s track record, its forces having occupied parts of south Lebanon from 1982 to 2000 and again briefly in 2006.
Map titled “New Israeli evacuation warnings for Lebanese towns” courtesy of the New York Times.
War logistics aside, the human cost of Israel’s crackdown on Hezbollah has been incredibly high. Lebanese authorities say nearly 2,000 people were killed in the conflict, most of them within the past two weeks, and 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced—that’s around a fifth of the country’s population. UN officials also said on October 4th that the country’s nearly 900 shelters were mostly full, with people resorting to sleeping in streets and public parks. The UNHCR has also said that despite Israeli blasts having sealed off the main border crossing into Syria, many are crossing on foot, with over 185,000 having arrived in Syria so far, 60% of whom are children and adolescents.
Israel’s unprecedented offensive on Monday 23rd September hit over 1,600 targets, killing 558, according to the Lebanese health minister Dr. Firass Abiad. In a single day, Israeli blasts killed as many as about half the entire death count of the month-long 2006 war – it also took 18 days last October for the death toll to reach 500 in Gaza. At this rate, Lebanon is sure to see darker days. Though Hezbollah’s arsenal and troops remain, the Shi’ite militia will have to adjust itself to survive. Bilal Saab for Chatham house suggests it could either hand over its weaponry to the Lebanese army, morphing into a political entity and winning back citizens’ support, or, it could stay its course, risking total collapse.
Nevermind the group’s current pervasiveness, the power vacuum left by a decapitated Hezbollah would have the unfortunate potential to revive civil sectarian strife. Not only do current events echo those of 2006, it seems a post-invasion Lebanon might see its people fear yet another 1975.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own, and may not reflect the opinions of The St Andrews Economist.
Image Courtesy of AP Photo/Bilal Hussein