Nasrallah's death, chief of Hezbollah, is bound to have a profound impact, raising significant questions about the group's future
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An Israeli air strike in the densely populated area of Dahieh, a suburb in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, targeted and killed Hezbollah’s long-time chief Hassan Nasrallah on 27 September. The impact of Nasrallah’s death, who not only led Hezbollah but was a towering ideologue and figure within Lebanese polity for over three decades, is bound to be profound. However, for the moment, it leaves behind more questions than answers.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah, designated as a terror group by the United States and others in 1997, is seen as a state within a state. For the Israelis, eliminating most of Hezbollah’s top-ranked leadership over the past months was primarily a political decision and not a tactical one. The capacity and ability to conduct these operations are not built in the short term but honed over a long period. Furthermore, it is also a critical attempt to rebuild the sense of security that the country was so known for, which was not just dented, but decimated, after the terror attack by Hamas almost a year ago.
The impact of Nasrallah’s death, who not only led Hezbollah but was a towering ideologue and figure within Lebanese polity for over three decades, is bound to be profound.
Nasrallah was not just any movement leader, and Hezbollah was not like Al Qaeda, hiding in caves and fighting guerrilla warfare. Under Nasrallah, who headed the group for over three decades, Hezbollah transformed from a militant movement to a political one. It became a critical part of Lebanon’s identity, for better or worse for many, and the group, along with its leader, was core to Iran’s own regional designs. Unlike Hamas, a Sunni Islamist group, Hezbollah represented the Shia interest. In the aftermath of the 7 October attacks, Nasrallah came off as an unsarcastically wary actor, not keen to go full throttle against Israel just yet.
The reasons for this hesitancy are of debate even today. Israel has previously assassinated several Hezbollah and Hamas leaders. But it has suffered setbacks and learnings in unravelling the group’s military and political intent. This is as much about Israel’s military capacities as it is about its geographic realities. In the past, twice, Israel has tried to hold territories and create buffer zones in southern Lebanon with limited success in 1982 and 2006. Since then, Hezbollah has also upscaled its armoury significantly, adding ballistic missiles, drones, and other similar equipment with the help of Iran. The Qader-1 ballistic missile, first used by the Lebanese group during the ongoing exchanges, targeting Israeli intelligence headquarters in Tel Aviv, is known to be a variant of the Shahad-3 missile, in service with Iran’s military.
Under Nasrallah, who headed the group for over three decades, Hezbollah transformed from a militant movement to a political one.
For Israel, and more specifically, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the elimination of the entire current hierarchy of Hezbollah is a tempting opportunity to double down. The US, Israel's security guarantor, has also been boxed in between what it should do and what it would like Israel to do. The American role here is critical, which has shifted from discussions about Saudi–Israeli normalisation earlier in the year to now having to support its main ally in the region. This is not just for Israel’s sake per se, but also to preserve its own dwindling image as a security guarantor. To course correct, and uphold the word of American power and polity, specifically in Asia as a US-China contestation continues to build, abandoning core allies right now could be a costly message to send out. Added to this, the fact that Israel is taking on Hezbollah, a designated terror group, makes it difficult for the US’s ability to exert real pressure on Israel. This, however, has translated into Israel at times taking more than its share of advantage with Washington D.C., as civilian casualty numbers pile up and the US reportedly having no prior intimation on Israeli plans to target Nasrallah.
But if Israel has quandaries over ‘what next?’, so does Iran. One of the core reasons for Iran to embolden the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’, where Hezbollah under Nasrallah formed a core, was for it to not have to take on Israel directly and be embroiled in a conventional war. The response from Iran on both the assassination of the Hamas chief in central Tehran on the sidelines of the swearing-in ceremony of new Iranian president Mahmoud Pezeshkian and now the killing of the Hezbollah chief in Beirut has been uncharacteristically mute. While Hezbollah, which is much more intertwined with Iranian ideology and polity will not break ranks, it could raise questions over the depth of Iranian tutelage and the unity of decision-making moving forward between the state’s moderates and the more extreme viewpoints. It’s also a grave challenge for Pezeshkian, while not having much sway over either the Ayatollah or the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the new leader’s mandate is more representative of pulling the Iranian population towards prosperity and in his words, “justice”, than pushing them into a direct conflict.
The American role here is critical, which has shifted from discussions about Saudi–Israeli normalisation earlier in the year to now having to support its main ally in the region.
What would be the consequence of non-action from Iran is an interesting question. While Tehran did kinetically respond earlier in the year, in concert with its Resistance, including Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, it was due to a direct attack on an Iranian diplomatic mission by Israel in Syria. The fact that Iran mobilised when its direct interest was in the crosshairs but baulked in doing so on both Haniyeh and now Nasrallah’s killings would indeed raise some interesting conversations within the Resistance leadership, and maybe more consequentially, the lower and mid-level cadres who are on the frontlines.
Overall, the coming months seem unlikely to deliver a peace agreement or even a ceasefire at the current juncture of the conflict. Nasrallah’s cousin, Hashem Safieddine, is expected to succeed him. Israel’s decision to escalate and to achieve maximalist objectives was something Iran and Hezbollah seemingly did not expect, perhaps due to their prior experiences under similar circumstances. But for the future, when diving into the tough game of predictions, the general thumb rule for the Middle East remains to follow what states and actors do, and not what they say.
Kabir Taneja is the Deputy Director of the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Kabir Taneja is a Deputy Director and Fellow, Middle East, with the Strategic Studies programme. His research focuses on India’s relations with the Middle East ...
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