Middle East: Hezbollah's Nasrallah dead in Israeli airstrike

The death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah doesn't mean the Lebanese group is finished, Laura Blumenfeld, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, told DW.

"This is a game changer but it isn't game over. Israel took out the man but not the missiles," Blumenfeld said. "They still have a potent arsenal of precision-guided missiles aimed at Israeli population centers."

The analyst said that it was not Hamas, but rather Hezbollah and its stockpile of weapons that been the main concern for Israel's military leaders for the past decade.

"So if [Hezbollah] has some kind of succession in place, they can still really present a deadly threat to Israel," Blumenfeld said, if anyone is indeed willing to lead considering Israel's attacks on Hezbollah leaders.

"Lebanon in the Israeli consciousness is like Vietnam in the US. It's synonymous with a long, miserable slog which ultimately ends in a draw at best, or perhaps even a loss," the analyst said, adding that Israelis learnt a hard lesson from their invasions in 1982 and 2006. 

Blumenfeld pointed out, however, that Israel's goal is to wipe out Hezbollah so that it can bring back to the north the people who were evacuated because of Hezbollah attacks.

"I think they'd like to avoid that ground war, but on the other hand they believe that threatening and mobilizing a potential for the ground war would eventually bring them around to peace," she added.

Russia has condemned the killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah by Israel, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. 

"This forceful action is fraught with even greater dramatic consequences for Lebanon and the entire Middle East," the Foreign Ministry said, while labeling it a "political murder."   

Although the US, Germany and some countries recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, Russia does not.

Russia and Hezbollah are on the same page in their support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and backed him militarily amid the Syrian civil war. 

Russia has called on Israel to "immediately cease military operations" in Lebanon. 

Russia's comments come as it presses forward with its invasion of Ukraine. A Russian attack on a hospital in the Ukrainian town of Sumy on Saturday left several people dead.       

Here's a look at the latest for DW readers who have just started following our live coverage of the killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah: 

• The Israeli military said that 'Hassan Nasrallah will no longer be able to terrorize the world' after Beirut airstrike
• Hezbollah confirmed Nasrallah's death and vowed to continue its 'holy war' against Israel
• Iran's supreme leader urged Muslims to stand with the Lebanese people, but did not mention Nasrallah by name
• A general of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was also reportedly killed in the Israeli airstrike on Friday which killed Nasrallah
• The UN says over 50,000 people have left Lebanon for Syria amid Israel's aerial campaign in Lebanon
• DW's correspondent in Brussels says there is no 'celebration' or 'sadness' in EU over Nasrallah's death
• Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen have said they are mourning Nasrallah's death
• Erdogan has accused Israel of committing 'genocide' in Lebanon

Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani declared three days of national mourning over the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

In a statement, Sudani called Nasrallah "a martyr on the path of the righteous" and said his assassination was "a crime that shows that the Zionist entity has crossed all red lines."

Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim political party and militant group based in Lebanon.

The majority of Iraq's population is Shiite, and Sudani came to power with the support of a coalition of Iranian-backed political factions, many of which have their own armed wings that are allied with Hezbollah.

During his three decades as the leader of Hezbollah, the group became one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East. On Friday he was killed by an Israeli strike.  

The head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, said that more than 50,000 people have fled to Syria amid escalating Israeli air strikes on Lebanon.

"More than 50,000 Lebanese and Syrians living in Lebanon have now crossed into Syria fleeing Israeli air strikes. Well over 200,000 are displaced inside Lebanon," Grandi said on X.

He added that relief efforts are underway, including by his agency, UNHCR, in coordination with both governments, to help all those in need.

Meanwhile, a UNHCR spokesperson said the total number of displaced people in Lebanon has reached 211,319. The figure includes 118,000 who have been displaced since Israel dramatically stepped up its airstrikes on Monday.

The Palestinian group Hamas said it was mourning the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and described the Israeli strike that killed him as a "heinous crime [with] dangerous repercussions" for regional stability. 

"Crimes and assassination by the occupation will only increase the determination and the insistence of the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon to go forward with all their might, bravery and pride on the footsteps of the martyrs ... and pursue the path of resistance until victory and the dismissal of the occupation," Hamas said in a statement.

The group also reiterated its "absolute solidarity" with Hezbollah.

Yemen's Houthis, which like Hamas and Hezbollah is also backed by Iran, said it too was mourning Nasrallah's death.

"The resistance will not be broken, and the Jihadist spirit of the Mujahideen brothers in Lebanon and on all fronts of support will grow stronger and bigger," the group said in a statement, adding that it continued to seek the "disappearance of the Israeli enemy." 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the Israeli government of committing a "genocide" in Lebanon following the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. 

Erdogan, in a post on social media platform X, claimed that "Lebanon and the Lebanese people are the latest target of a policy of genocide, occupation and invasion carried out by Israel since October 7."

Erdogan expressed his solidarity with the Lebanese people and government, while calling on the Islamic world to show a more "determined" stance against Israel. Erdogan did not name Nasrallah in his post. 

Israel said on Saturday that Hassan Nasrallah, and the other senior Hezbollah members killed with him, were "legitimate military targets under international law."

"Nasrallah was one of the greatest enemies of the State of Israel of all time... his elimination makes the world a safer place," Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on the media platform X.

"We continue, even at this very moment, to strike, eliminate and kill the commanders of the Hezbollah organization, and we will continue to do so," he added.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, called Nasrallah "the murderer of thousands of Israelis and foreign citizens."

In a statement directed to the people of Lebanon, he said: "Our war is not with you. It's time for change." 

"To our enemies I say: We are strong and determined," Gallant added.

A senior general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), 58-year-old Abbas Nilforushan, was killed alongside Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah by an Israeli strike on Friday, according to Iranian state media.     

Nilforushan "was killed in Israel's attack on Lebanon that assassinated the Hezbollah chief," the government-funded Islamic Repubic News Agency reported. 

The US government has said that Nilforushan was the deputy commander of operations for the IRGC. He was also involved in backing Syrian President Bashar Assad in the Syrian civil war and he served in the Iran-Iraq war.   

The death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike is a new challenge for the European Union, according to Jack Parrock, DW's correspondent in Brussels.

There will be neither "celebration" nor "sadness" across the European capitals over the death of Nasrallah, but European leaders will be thinking about what to do in this situation, he said.

"From the EU perspective, Hezbollah's military wing is under sanctions, but the political wing is not under the EU sanctions," Parrock added.

"There has been a consistent cause for de-escalation in the EU... but they will now be questioning how to do that," he said, adding that since the October 7 terror attack on Israel, the EU has struggled to assert its influence, especially on the Israeli government.

Lebanon's Hezbollah has confirmed that its leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike, while pledging to continue its "holy war" against Israel.

"Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah, has joined his great, immortal martyr comrades whom he led for about 30 years," the Iran-backed militia said in a statement.

The statement says Hezbollah vows to "continue the holy war against the enemy and in support of Palestine."

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has called on Muslims to help fight Israel, saying that Lebanon's Hezbollah would play a major role in deciding the fate of the Middle East region.

In a statement that did not mention the status of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah despite Israeli claims to have killed him, Khamenei said Muslims should "stand by the people of Lebanon and the proud Hezbollah" in the fight against the "wicked regime (of Israel)." 

"The fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the forefront," state media reported him as saying.

"The massacre of the defenseless people in Lebanon once again revealed the ferocity of the Zionist rabid dog to everyone and proved the short-sighted and stupid policy of the leaders of the usurping regime," Khamenei said.

Regional officials briefed by Tehran have told Reuters news agency that Khamenei has been transferred to a secure location in Iran under heightened security.
 

The reported death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is a "natural progression" in the conflict between the Iran-backed group and Israel, according to Makram Rabah, assistant professor of history at the American University of Beirut.

"They [Hezbollah] have failed to understand the world has changed," Rabah told DW. 

"I think this idea that Hezbollah cannot be destroyed is something that was defeated in the streets of Beirut," he said. 

Rabah said recent events had shown that the group is more vulnerable than some analysts have been saying, with many of its leaders dead or in hiding, meaning a lot of attacks by Hezbollah are "more or less individual initiatives."

He warned that Hezbollah's backers, Iran, remained the leading danger. 

"Hezbollah is only a manifestation of Iran, and if left alone, Iran can go back to being a spoiler in the region."

"If we do not address the elephant in the room, which is Iran, this will only be one episode in a series of other chapters that can only bring more deaths and destruction to the entire region as well as to the international community," he said. 

The Israeli military says it expects Hezbollah to continue its attacks on Israel despite reportedly losing its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

"We hope this will change Hezbollah's actions," Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters after the IDF said it had killed Nasrallah.

But, he said, "It's safe to assume that they are going to continue carrying out their attacks against us or try to." 

"So are we ready for a wider escalation? Yes. We've been in a wider escalation, a multi-front war, for a year. Our forces are on high alert, our intelligence is up and looking for these types of threats," he said.

Israel's chief of staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, said Israel, too, would continue its attacks on the Iran-backed militia even after Nasrallah's death.

Halevi said the killing of Nasrallah was "not the end of our toolbox."

"The message to all those who threaten the citizens of the state of Israel is simple: We will know how to reach them. In the north, in the south and in more distant places," he said. 

Hezbollah itself has yet to issue any statement on the status of Nasrallah.