An Israeli air raid in Beirut killed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's longtime leader, the Lebanese militant group confirmed Saturday, the most powerful target killed by Israel in weeks of intensified fighting and a significant escalation in the war in the Middle East, this time between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Israeli military said it carried out a precise airstrike on Friday while Hezbollah leaders were meeting at their headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said six people were killed and 91 injured in the strikes, which leveled six apartment buildings. Ali Karki, the commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front and other commanders were also killed, the Israeli military said.
A statement from Hezbollah said Nasrallah — who led the group for more than three decades — “has joined his fellow martyrs.” The group vowed to “continue the holy war against the enemy and in support of Palestine.”
Iran announced Saturday that a prominent general in its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard sanctioned by the U.S. died in the same airstrike. Abbas Nilforushan, 58, who the U.S. identified as the deputy commander for operations in the Guard, was killed Friday, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas sent condolences to its ally, Hezbollah, and said “assassinations will only increase the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine in determination and resolve.”
Immediately after the confirmation from Hezbollah, people starting firing in the air in Beirut and across Lebanon to mourn Nasrallah's death.
“Wish it was our kids, not you, Sayyid!” said one woman, using an honorific title for Nasrallah, as she clutched her baby in the western city of Baabda.
News of Nasrallah's killing stunned travelers at Lebanon's only international airport, where hundreds of people were scrambling to leave the country despite limited flights. Some cried. Others talked on their phones in disbelief. One woman screamed: “No! It was just an announcement! No, he didn’t die!”
Iran’s supreme leader announced five days of public mourning after Nasrallah's death. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Nasrallah “the flag-bearer of resistance” in the region.
Hundreds of protesters meanwhile took to the streets of Tehran, waving Hezbollah flags and chanting “Death to Israel” and “Death to Netanyahu the murderer.”
Thomas Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, said Iran will be under significant pressure to respond to Nasrallah’s killing without escalating violence in the region.
“Iran understands that its military options are limited, given the conventional military superiority of Israel and the U.S.” Juneau told The Associated Press.
Israel’s Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said Saturday that the elimination of Nasrallah was “not the end of our toolbox,” indicating that more strikes were planned. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called it “the most important targeted strike since the founding of the State of Israel.”
Israel has vowed to step up pressure on Hezbollah until it halts its attacks that have displaced tens of thousands of Israelis from communities near the Lebanese border. The recent fighting has also displaced more than 200,000 Lebanese in the past week, according to the United Nations.
The military said Saturday it was mobilizing three more battalions of reserve soldiers to serve across the country. It already sent two brigades to northern Israel to prepare for a possible ground invasion.
Shoshani, the army spokesperson, said Israel has inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollah’s capabilities over the past week by targeting immediate threats and strategic weapons, such as larger, guided missiles. But he said much of Hezbollah’s arsenal remains intact and that Israel would continue to target the group.
Air raid sirens sounded across central Israel on Saturday afternoon, including at the Tel Aviv international airport, shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from a trip to the U.S.
The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen. It was not immediately known if the missile strike was aimed at Netanyahu’s flight.
The Israeli military updated guidelines for Israeli citizens, canceling gatherings of more than 1,000 people due to the threat.
Approximately 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes along the Lebanese border for almost a year. This month, Israel's government said halting Hezbollah’s attacks in the country’s north to allow residents to return to their homes is an official goal.
Hezbollah started firing rockets on Israel in support of Gaza on Oct. 8, a day after Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing some 1,200 people and abducting another 250. Since then, the two sides have been engaged in escalating cross-border strikes.
Earlier this month, thousands of explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated, killing dozens of people and maiming thousands, including many civilians. Israel is widely believed to be behind the attack. Israel has killed several other top Hezbollah commanders in Beirut, especially in the past two weeks, in addition to the attack that killed Nasrallah.
Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based think tank Institute for National Security Studies and former intelligence analyst for the Israeli military and prime minister’s office, noted that Nasrallah was sometimes a “voice of reason,” interested in engaging Israel in a war of attrition and holding the militant group back from using the full force of their formidable arsenal against Israel.
Nasrallah's death could prompt some less senior members of Hezbollah to unleash much stronger weapons than have been used in the nearly yearlong exchange of hostilities, Mizrahi said. The biggest question mark right now, though, is how Iran will respond.
She said Nasrallah's death could provide a window of opportunity — while the organization is significantly weakened — for Lebanon to dilute Hezbollah’s influence, especially in the south, that threatens to drag Lebanon into a full-scale war with Israel.
On Saturday morning, the Israeli military carried out more than 140 airstrikes in southern Beirut and eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, including targeting a storage facility for anti-ship missiles in Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh. Israel said the missiles were stored beneath civilian apartment buildings. Hezbollah launched dozens of projectiles across northern and central Israel and deep into the Israel-occupied West Bank, damaging some buildings in the northern town of Safed.
In Beirut’s southern suburbs, smoke rose and the streets were empty after the area was pummeled overnight by heavy Israeli airstrikes. Shelters set up in the city center for displaced people were overflowing. Many families slept in public squares and on beaches or in their cars. On the roads leading to the mountains above the capital, hundreds of people could be seen fleeing on foot, holding infants and whatever belongings they could carry.
The Israeli army again warned Lebanese residents to stay away from Hezbollah combat equipment and facilities, including in the southern suburbs of Beirut and southern Lebanon. The U.S. State Department issued an alert urging American citizens to leave the country.
A total of 1,030 people — including 156 women and 87 children — have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon in less than two weeks, the country’s health minister said Saturday.
Associated Press writers Abby Sewell, Kareem Chehayeb and Ahmad Mousa in Beirut; Lujain Jo in Baabda, Lebanon; Nasser Karimi and Mehdi Fattahi in Tehran, Iran; and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
20 Comments
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Yrral
Israelis Jews may run ,but they cannot hide,Bibi just put target on every Israelis back,now Israelis Jews want too put the same targets on American back and some American welcome that
Tamarama
Well, the gloves are completely off now, aren't they.
Perspective, or point of view is largely shaped for us, often passively over time. The Western, US centric media has long portrayed Israel as the shining beacon in a land of darkness, surrounded by 'militants' and 'terrorists' and 'extremists' and are just doing what is necessary to get by in this badlands malaise they occupy. The victim card is often pinned to their lapel due to history and Western guilt very much at the forefront of this construct, which extends right back to the time of Jesus, the West's primary monotheistic God's son, who if he actually ever lived was a Jew. The Jews are deeply woven into the historical and spiritual construct of the West.
Since the end of WW2, they have been given a Western hall pass to do whatever the heck they want in Palestine, which they have used to its full extent and then some, by regularly and continually abusing the privilege and turning the screws on Palestinian misery. Groups like Hamas are the direct result of this abuse.
The people of the region see a generally Western backed, but predominantly American, extremist religious group in their region who are heavily armed and aggressive, and who have mercilessly abused the Muslim and Christian Palestinians over the full course of their newest tenure in the region, effectively will full impunity.
Now, they are just openly killing their neighbours holus bolus with their Western supplied hardware, and have morphed into an even bigger monster. This is the hulk, full of rage going mental, with the power and backing to do whatever they want. Israel are either secretly backed to the hilt here by the US and know it, or, they simply don't care anymore and are taking the toys given to them and destroying the schoolyard.
Hezbollah appear to have been showing restraint by not using their most sophisticated weapons yet, but why show any restraint now?
The question now is not, 'Is this war?', the question is only 'How big does it get?'
dagon
Israel is leading revolution in what used to be the viability of asymmetric conflict.
Using machine learning algorithms, drones, thermobarics and bunker buster bombs it is hard to escape the reach of their forces.
They hit the target but the tragedy is in all the others just deemed collateral .
fxgai
What a fanatic.
Imagine if your own mother said that about you?
Fighto!
Another terrorist dealt with.
There are a lot of bad things about Israel (and Israeli people) - but they always get their man. And the response from Hezbolah so far, despite all the rhetoric, is just like Hamas - as weak as being hit with a lettuce leaf.
I can't see Iran getting involved any more than again firing off a few dozen missiles and announcing "revenge has been taken".
dagon
We cannot judge the accuracy of the quote but if true is just a horrific example of the sick fanaticism of religion.
JeffLee
The pager/walkie talkie attack was about as targeted as an attack can be, given the nature of a conflict where one side uses human shields whenever they can.
That's easy. Until the bad guys stop shooting rockets into Israel and both Hizbollah and Hamas lose the ability to wage their attacks.
I believe the first exoduses were caused by the Assyrians, Babylonians and ancient Egyptians. Not a lot of "guilt" among the descendants of those folks today. LOL.
wallace
All of the major leaders of Hezbollah are dead. What happens next?
bass4funk
You move forward
wallace
bass4funk
All of the major leaders of Hezbollah are dead. What happens next?
It's not the end of Hezbollah and their vast arsenal of rockets. What will they do next?
The Ripper!
Maximum impact in eliminating terrorists with minimal impact on civilian casualties.
Some dude
I've always considered myself fairly impartial in regard to this whole middle eastern mess. Partly because there's so much history behind it which I don't know enough about. And the overall cost in terms of human suffering is immense.
But one thing does objectively seem fairly evident: Israel is pretty good at this stuff. They've been taking out major players for a while now. And of course the remains of the major players' organisations have to huff and puff and go on about martyrdom and striking back at the enemy and so on, but they must realise that they're not going up against amateurs. You have to wonder that, even for a religious fanatic, there comes a point where they realise they're getting their holy posteriors kicked pretty hard and start to wonder if it's worth it.
bass4funk
For now it is. It will take a long time for them to regroup and rebuild the infrastructure of terror they had before. The previous terrorists were around and caused irreparable damage for decades.
They should try and use it and the IDF will eliminate those as well.
YeahRight
And another one bites the dust. The fewer of these terrorists there are, the better off Israel, your normal, average-day Palestinians, and the world will be.
Fighto!
At this point, the Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian leaders tough talk and promises of vengeance are simply a bluff.
They realise that if they back down, their own people will know they have been needlessly slaughtered because of them - and they will be torn to shreds.
I genuinely hope there are insurrections in the Palestine, Lebanon and Iran - that the regular people go after and extinguish the remaining leaders.
burgers and beers
One has to admit Israel sure seems to have some good intelligence about Hezbollah ( compared to Hamas in Gaza.)
Tamarama
Right. So choosing a random day, last Monday, Israel killed 558 people in Lebanon, including 94 women and 50 children, in bomb and missile strikes. How 'targeted' would you say that was?
What is your definition of a 'bad guy'?
Some simple research will help you understand that the definitive exodus of the Jewish people from Israel was orchestrated by Europeans - the Romans, not long after they executed Jesus. A lot of them were taken as slaves, other large groups settled into Europe over subsequent centuries where they were subject to pogroms, racism and oppression through the Middle Ages right up until recent times, in places including: Spain, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Belgium, Ireland, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Romania etc. The ultimate culmination of that was of course the Holocaust. That, my friend, accounts for some of the collective Western guilt associated with this, and how instructive that is in the way modern day Israel exists, is supported and behaves.
Toblerone
I can’t believe Israel did this. They are deadly serious about destroying their enemies once and for all.
The Ripper!
We've been hearing how if Israel does this or does that, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, other Arab countries will wreak havoc upon Israel.
The reality is none of those terrorist organizations have the will, ability, organization, or patience to try any large scale attack on Israel.
Great to see the good guys coming out on top.
Cephus
"Hezbollah confirms its leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike."
They didn't receive the pager message Benjamin is on the way right?