Nasrallah; Leading a life of resistance and piety
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, whose death was confirmed by the Lebanese resistance movement on Saturday, led the group through decades of conflict with Israel.
Nasrallah, one of the most prominent Arab figures in generations, was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike on Friday, with the Israeli military saying the strike, which killed and wounded dozens of people, hit the headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut.
The 64-year-old leader was one of the best-known and most influential figures in the Middle East. As the third secretary-general of the Hezbollah party and resistance group from 1992 until his death, he transformed the group into one of the most powerful fronts in the Middle East for standing up to Israel.
Under his leadership, Hezbollah became a major force in Lebanon’s politics with eight seats in the parliament. Nasrallah was a vocal supporter of the Islamic Revolution of Iran and maintained close ties with Iranian leaders.
The Hezbollah chief will be remembered among his supporters for standing up to Israel and defying the United States.
Born in 1960, Nasrallah grew up in Beirut’s eastern Bourj Hammoud neighborhood. He completed his education in the Lebanese city of Tyre. One of nine siblings, he was known to be pious from an early age, often taking long walks to the city center to find second-hand books on Islam.
Nasrallah himself has described how he would spend his free time as a child staring reverently at a portrait of the Shia scholar Imam Musa al-Sadr. Nasrallah was deeply influenced by Sadr and developed an interest in religious studies.
In 1974, Sadr founded an organization – the Movement of the Deprived – that became the ideological kernel for the well-known Lebanese party, Amal. Nasrallah briefly joined the Amal Movement and then attended a seminary in Baalbek. Later, he studied and taught at the Amal school. He joined Hezbollah after Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. After a short period of religious studies in Iran, Nasrallah returned to Lebanon.
Nasrallah was part of a generation of young Lebanese Shias whose political outlook was shaped by Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Nasrallah worked his way up through Hezbollah’s ranks as the organization grew. He said that after serving as a fighter, he became its director in Baalbek, then the whole Bekaa region, followed by Beirut.
After the assassination of the co-founder and secretary-general of Hezbollah, Abbas al-Musawi, in 1992, Nasrallah became the leader of the movement at the age of 32. Under his leadership, Hezbollah acquired missiles with a longer range, enabling them to attack northern Israel. One of his first actions was to retaliate against the killing of Musawi. He ordered rocket attacks into northern Israel.
Nasrallah also managed a low-intensity war with Israeli forces that ended with their withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, though he suffered a personal loss when his eldest son, Hadi, was killed in a firefight with Israeli troops. Israel suffered heavy casualties during its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon and eventually withdrew its forces in that year.
Following the withdrawal, Nasrallah said that Hezbollah had achieved the first victory against Israel. He also vowed that Hezbollah would not disarm, saying that it considered that “all Lebanese territory must be restored,” including the occupied Shebaa Farms area.
This achievement increased Hezbollah’s popularity in the region and strengthened its position in Lebanon.
However, there was relative calm until 2006, when Hezbollah launched a cross-border attack in reprisal for the regime’s onslaughts. Eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two others kidnapped during the attack, triggering a massive Israeli response.
Israeli warplanes bombed Hezbollah strongholds in the south and in Beirut’s southern suburbs, while Hezbollah fired about 4,000 rockets at Israel. More than 1,125 Lebanese, most of them civilians, were killed during the 34-day conflict, as well as 119 Israeli soldiers and 45 civilians.
In 2009, Nasrallah issued a new political manifesto that sought to highlight Hezbollah’s “political vision.” It maintained a tough line against Israel and the US and reiterated that Hezbollah needed to keep its weapons despite a UN resolution banning them in southern Lebanon.
“People evolve, and the world changed over the past 24 years. Lebanon changed. The world order changed,” Nasrallah said.
Four years later, Nasrallah declared that Hezbollah was entering “a completely new phase” of its existence by sending members into Syria to help the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in its war with foreign-backed terrorists. “It is our battle, and we are up to it,” Nasrallah said.
In 2019, a deep economic crisis in Lebanon triggered mass protests against a political elite long accused of corruption, waste, mismanagement, and negligence. Nasrallah initially expressed sympathy with the calls for reforms, but his attitude changed as the protesters began demanding a complete overhaul of the political system.
On October 8, 2023, the day after the unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas that triggered the war in Gaza, previously sporadic fighting between Hezbollah and Israel escalated. Facing one of its biggest challenges, Hezbollah fired at Israeli positions, in solidarity with the Palestinians.
In a speech in November, Nasrallah said that the Hamas attack had been “100% Palestinian in terms of both decision and execution” but that the firing between his group and Israel was “very important and significant.”
Hezbollah launched more than 8,000 rockets at northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. It also fired anti-tank missiles at armored vehicles and attacked military targets with explosive drones.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) retaliated with air strikes and tank and artillery fire against Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.
In his most recent speech, Nasrallah blamed Israel for detonating thousands of pagers and radio handsets used by Hezbollah members, which killed 39 people and wounded thousands more, and said it had “crossed all red lines.” Shortly afterwards, Israel dramatically escalated attacks on Hezbollah, launching waves of bombing that killed nearly 800 people.
The movement Nasrallah built over three decades is highly organized and remains resolute in its opposition to Israel. However, his assassination is unlikely to be a fatal blow to Hezbollah, but it has undoubtedly left a void in the group’s leadership. Nasrallah’s charisma and influence extended far beyond Lebanon’s borders, and his death will be deeply felt. As Hezbollah begins the process of selecting a new leader, it will face a critical decision: what path to take next. Whatever they choose, the consequences will reverberate across Lebanon and the wider region.