Tuesday, October 1, 2024

A00066 - Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanese Cleric and Politician Who Was the Longtime Leader of Hezbollah

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Hassan Nasrallah
Hassan Nasrallah Hassan Nasrallah, 2006.

Hassan Nasrallah

Lebanese leader
    






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Hassan Nasrallah (b. Hassan Abdel Karim Nasrallah, August 31, 1960, Beirut, Lebanon — d. September 27, 2024, Dahieh, Lebanon) was a Lebanese militia and political leader who served as leader (secretary-general) of Hezbollah (Arabic: “Party of God”) from 1992.

Nasrallah was raised in the impoverished Karantina district of eastern Beirut, where his father ran a small grocery store.  As a boy, Nasrallah was an earnest student of Islam. After the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon in 1975 caused the family to flee south from Beirut, Nasrallah joined Amal, a Lebanese Shi'a paramilitary group with ties to Iran and Syria. Soon afterward, he left for Najaf, Iraq, to study at the Shi'a seminary there. Following the expulsion of hundreds of Lebanese students from Iraq in 1978, Nasrallah returned to Lebanon and fought with Amal, becoming the group’s Al-Biqa, valley commander. Following Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Nasrallah left Amal to join the nascent Hezbollah movement, a more-radical force that was heavily influenced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. 

In the late 1980s, Nasrallah rose through Hezbollah’s military ranks and became a leading figure in Hezbollah’s clashes with Amal. As his potential for leadership became clear, he went to Iran to further his religious education in Qom. He then returned to battle in Lebanon in 1989 until the end of the civil war in the following year. He assumed leadership of Hezbollah in 1992 after his predecessor, Sheikh 'Abbas al-Musawi, was killed by an Israeli missile.

Nasrallah’s leadership of the organization was characterized by his populism. He relied on charisma and subtle charm to express his message. He was not a fiery or intimidating speaker. Rather, he came across as thoughtful, humble, and, at times, humorous. Moreover, under his leadership, Hezbollah cultivated an elaborate network of social welfare programs, which helped win the group broad grassroots support.

Nasrallah also steered the organization beyond its roots as an Islamist militia and into the realm of national politics, establishing himself as a political leader without holding public office. He emphasized the importance of Arab dignity and honor and assumed a key role in the defense of Lebanon. With Hezbollah engaged in a war of attrition against the continued Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, Israel launched an assault in 1996 to combat rockets fired into northern Israel. Nasrallah’s national profile was raised when he negotiated, through United States mediation, a cease-fire on cross-border attacks with Israel, though this did not preclude any fighting within Lebanon itself. Later, continued attacks on Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon led Israel to withdraw in 2000. This gave Nasrallah a surge in popularity in the Arab world, but he was not unscathed in the effort. In 1997 his 18-year-old son, Hadi, was killed while fighting Israeli forces.

Nasrallah was credited with additional successes against Israel. In 2004, he arranged a prisoner exchange with Israel that many Arabs considered a victory. In an effort to pressure Israel into releasing additional prisoners, Hezbollah paramilitary forces launched a military operation from the south in 2006, killing a number of Israeli soldiers and abducting two. This action led Israel to launch a major military offensive against Hezbollah. At the beginning of the war, some Arab leaders criticized Nasrallah and Hezbollah for inciting the conflict. However, by the end of the 34-day war, which resulted in the deaths of 1,000 Lebanese and the displacement of some one million others, Nasrallah had declared victory and had once again emerged as a revered leader in much of the Arab world, as Hezbollah was able to fight the Israeli Defense Forces to a standstill — a feat that no other Arab militia had accomplished.

Nasrallah and Hezbollah emerged from the 2006 war against Israel with new prestige and political influence. The group argued for more seats in the cabinet in the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora so that it could wield veto power. When this demand was not met, opposition ministers in the cabinet who were aligned with Hezbollah quit the government.  Hezbollah and its political allies organized protests and sit-ins across Lebanon for well over a year. In November 2007, an opposition boycott prevented the National Assembly, from choosing a new president, and the office was left vacant.

In May 2008, clashes broke out in Beirut between Hezbollah forces and pro-government militias after the government decided to dismantle Hezbollah’s telecommunications network — a move Nasrallah likened to a declaration of war. The government reversed its decision, and the standoff came to an end later that month after Nasrallah and the other government leaders reached a settlement in the Qatar-mediated Doha Agreement. One of the provisions of the agreement increased the number of cabinet seats held by Hezbollah, giving the group its desired veto power, albeit only for a short period of time, as the June 2009 elections left Hezbollah and its allies, known as the March 8 bloc, too politically weak to retain veto power in the cabinet. In 2011, after it became clear that five members of Hezbollah would be indicted in the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafic al-Hariri, the March 8 bloc and one other minister quit the cabinet, forcing a collapse of the government.

Meanwhile, the region was shaken by the Arab Spring of 2011, forcing Nasrallah to make tough decisions. He supported the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Bahrain in 2011. But when his ally in Syria, Bashar al-Assad. faced protests and, later, a civil war, Nasrallah initially remained silent. In 2013, he began giving speeches and interviews in which he confirmed and justified Hezbollah’s material support for the Syrian government in its civil war. He acknowledged the unpopularity of Hezbollah’s participation but was able to frame the rebel groups as inimical to the Shi'a in the region and, therefore, an existential threat to his constituents.

Lebanon’s political system, meanwhile, was virtually paralyzed. Stalemate left the presidency vacant for 29 months, until a 2016 power-sharing deal filled the post with Nasrallah’s ally Michel Aoun. Legislative elections, originally set for 2013, were repeatedly postponed, while Nasrallah and the March 8 bloc pushed for a new law to make the National Assembly representation proportional. In 2017, the cabinet approved a proportional electoral system and set elections for May 2018. When elections were held, Hezbollah and its March 8 allies expanded their representation and played a commanding role in the formation of a unity government.

Amid a burgeoning financial crisis, the new government was plagued by an image of corruption and ineffectiveness. When massive protests broke out across the country in October 2019, demanding that the government resign, Nasrallah opposed the protests and the calls for the government’s resignation, but he also called on the government to address protesters’ concerns and restore their confidence in it.

As Iran worked in the late 2010s and early 2020s to consolidate its network of alliances across the Middle East, which it refers to as the “axis of resistance,” Nasrallah was one of the network’s most important nodes. On October 7, 2023, axis ally Hamas, a Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip, launched a land, sea, and air attack on Israel. Nasrallah congratulated Hamas on the attack. Hezbollah and Israel intensified their cross-border skirmishes in the wake of the attack and the onset of the Israel-Hamas war. 

After nearly a year of war in the Gaza Strip, Israel began turning its attention toward Hezbollah in Lebanon in September 2024. On September 27, just a week after launching intense air strikes across southern Lebanon and Beirut, the Israeli air force dropped more than 80 bombs into the Dahieh neighborhood just south of Beirut in a strike targeting Nasrallah. His body was found and identified the following day, and his death was confirmed by Hezbollah.

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Hassan Nasrallah (Arabic: حسن نصر الله, romanized: Ḥasan Naṣr-Allāh, pronounced [ħasan nasˤralːaːh]; 31 August 1960 – 27 September 2024) was a Lebanese cleric and politician who served as the secretary-general of Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist political party and militia, from 1992 until his assassination in late 2024.

Born into a Shia family in the suburbs of Beirut in 1960, Nasrallah finished his education in Tyre, when he briefly joined the Amal Movement, and afterward at a Shia seminary in Baalbek. He later studied and taught at an Amal school. Nasrallah joined Hezbollah, which was formed to fight the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. After a brief period of religious studies in Iran, Nasrallah returned to Lebanon and became Hezbollah's leader after his predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi, was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike in 1992.[2][3]

Under Nasrallah's leadership, Hezbollah acquired rockets with a longer range, which allowed them to strike at northern Israel. After Israel suffered heavy casualties during its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon, it withdrew its forces in 2000, which greatly increased Hezbollah's popularity in the region, and bolstered Hezbollah's position within Lebanon.[4] Hezbollah cultivated Nasrallah's media image as a charismatic authority, though this image was later weakened.[5] Hezbollah's role in ambushing an Israeli border patrol unit leading up to the 2006 Lebanon War was subject to criticism, though he projected the end of the war as a Lebanese and Arab victory.[6][5]

During the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah fought on the side of the Syrian government against what Nasrallah termed "Islamist extremists". Nasrallah also promoted the "Axis of Resistance", an informal coalition of Iran-backed groups focused on opposing Israel and the United States.[7][neutrality is disputed] After the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Hezbollah engaged in the war against Israel, resulting in an ongoing conflict that impacted both sides of the border.[8] On 27 September 2024, Israel assassinated Nasrallah when its air force struck the group's headquarters.[9]

Early life and education

Hassan Nasrallah was born the ninth of ten children into a Shia family in Bourj Hammoud, Matn District (an eastern suburb of Beirut), on 31 August 1960.[10] His father, Abdul Karim Nasrallah, was born in Bazourieh, a village in Jabal Amel (Southern Lebanon) located near Tyre, and worked as a fruit and vegetables seller.[11] Although his family was not particularly religious, Hassan was interested in theological studies. He attended the al-Najah school and later a public school in the predominantly Christian neighborhood of Sin el Fil.[2][10]

In 1975, the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War forced the family, including Nasrallah who was 15 at the time, to move to their ancestral home in Bazourieh, where Nasrallah completed his secondary education at the public school in Tyre. There, he briefly joined the Amal Movement, a Lebanese Shia political group.[2][10]

Nasrallah studied at the Shia seminary in the Beqaa Valley town of Baalbek. The school followed the teachings of Iraqi Shi'ite scholar Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, who founded the Dawa movement in Najaf, Iraq during the early 1960s.[12] In 1976, at 16, Nasrallah traveled to Iraq where he was admitted into al-Sadr's seminary in Najaf. It is said that Al-Sadr recognized Nasrallah's qualities and Al-Sadr is quoted as saying "I scent in you the aroma of leadership; you are one of the Ansar [followers] of the Mahdi...". Nasrallah was expelled from Iraq, along with dozens of other Lebanese students in 1978. Al-Sadr was imprisoned, tortured, and brutally murdered.[13][10] Nasrallah was forced to return to Lebanon in 1979, by that time having completed the first part of his study, as Saddam Hussein was expelling many Shia,[10] including the future Iranian supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, and Abbas Musawi.[14]

Back in Lebanon, Nasrallah studied and taught at the school of Amal's leader Abbas al-Musawi, later being selected as Amal's political delegate in Beqaa, and making him a member of the central political office. Around the same time, in 1980, Al-Sadr was executed by Hussein.

Early activities

Nasrallah joined Hezbollah, which was formed to fight the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.[15][2] In 1989, Hassan Nasrallah traveled to Qom, Iran, where he furthered his religious studies.[10][16][17]

Nasrallah believed that Islam holds the solution to the problems of any society, once saying, "With respect to us, briefly, Islam is not a simple religion including only prayers and praises, rather it is a divine message that was designed for humanity, and it can answer any question man might ask concerning his general and personal life. Islam is a religion designed for a society that can revolt and build a community."[2]

In 1991, Nasrallah returned to Lebanon and the next year replaced Musawi as Hezbollah's leader after the latter was killed by an Israeli airstrike.[18]

Political career

Leadership of Hezbollah

An undated photo of Nasrallah with Ali Khamenei and IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani thought to be taken in Khamenei's office in Tehran, published in 2019

Nasrallah became the leader of Hezbollah after the Israelis assassinated the previous leader, Musawi, in 1992.[2] During Nasrallah's leadership, Hezbollah acquired rockets with a longer range, which allowed them to strike at northern Israel despite the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. In 1993, Israel carried out Operation Accountability which resulted in the destruction of much of Lebanon's infrastructure, and Israel claimed the operation was successful. An agreement was eventually reached whereby Israel ended its attacks in Lebanon and Hezbollah agreed to stop attacks on northern Israel.

After a short pause, hostilities resumed. In 1996 Israel launched Operation Grapes of Wrath, blocking important Lebanese harbour cities and bombing a Syrian military base. After 16 days of Israeli attacks in Lebanon, the Israeli–Lebanese Ceasefire Understanding was agreed upon. Again, Hezbollah agreed to stop rocket attacks in exchange for Israel halting its attacks. As in 1993, the peace did not last for long.

In September 1997, Nasrallah's public image changed dramatically with his speech about the news of his eldest son's killing by Israeli forces, along with his visits to other mourning families. Nasrallah's reaction became a media event that "served to bring Lebanese nationals together as a collective" and cast Nasrallah "as an extraordinarily selfless leader and an organic leader with deep roots in popular culture."[5]

Nasrallah giving a speech in May 2000, just after the Israeli withdrawal

In Israel, it was increasingly debated whether the presence of Israeli forces in southern Lebanon was working, since it was clear that the 'security zone' could not stop Hezbollah rockets reaching into Israel. After heavy Israeli casualties in south Lebanon, some Israeli politicians argued that the conflict would only end if Israel withdrew from Lebanon. In 2000, Ehud Barak withdrew Israeli forces from Lebanon. After the Israeli withdrawal, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), which was supported by Israel, was quickly overrun by Hezbollah. Some SLA members escaped to Israel, but many were captured by Hezbollah. That success against Israel greatly increased Hezbollah's popularity within Lebanon and the Islamic world.[2]

As a result, Nasrallah was credited in Lebanon and the Arab world for ending the Israeli occupation of the South of Lebanon, something which has greatly bolstered the party's political standing within Lebanon.[19] Nasrallah played a major role in a complex prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hezbollah in 2004, resulting in hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners being freed and many human remains, including that of his son, being returned to Lebanon. The agreement was described across the Arab world as a magnificent victory for Hezbollah, and Nasrallah was personally praised for achieving these gains.[20]

Hassan Nasrallah's speech in Beirut, November 2023

A December article in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat said that command of the organization's military wing was transferred from Nasrallah to his deputy, Na'im Qasim in August 2007.[21] Hezbollah denied the suggestion, declaring it an attempt to "weaken the popularity" of the movement.[22] In October 2008, Hashem Safieddine, his cousin, was assigned to succeed Nasrallah as secretary general of Hezbollah.[23] Widespread protests in Lebanon in October 2019 due to a deepening financial and economic crisis put pressure on the government leaders to resign, including Nasrallah himself.[24]

Under his tenure, Hezbollah has been designated a terrorist organization, either wholly or in part, by the United States and other nations, as well as by the European Union. The Arab League designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization in 2016, but as of 2024 no longer views it as one.[25] As of 2015, Russia was rejecting the claims that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, and considered Hezbollah a legitimate sociopolitical organization.[26] As of 2012, China remains neutral, and maintains contacts with Hezbollah.[27][28]

Memorandum of Understanding with Free Patriotic Movement

Nasrallah negotiated a Memorandum of Understanding with the Free Patriotic Movement headed by Michel Aoun, the former premier and a Maronite Christian. Aoun described the ten-point MoU in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal published in July 2006. Hezbollah agreed to disarm upon the return of its prisoners and the occupied Shebaa Farms. It also agreed to the pardon and return of fugitive South Lebanon Army (SLA) members.[29]

The Free Patriotic Movement in turn agreed to work for reform of the confessional electoral system of the Parliament of Lebanon and move it in the direction of one man, one vote. Aoun made the point that the political process was in effect disarming Hezbollah without any loss in lives from unnecessary wars.[29]

2006 Lebanon War

Main article: 2006 Lebanon War
Nasrallah in 2005

Following an ambush by Hezbollah in Israeli territory that left three soldiers dead and two abducted,[30] the 2006 Lebanon War started. During the war Israeli bombardments seeking Hezbollah targets caused damage in many parts of Beirut, especially the poorer and largely Shiite South Beirut, which is controlled by Hezbollah. On 3 August 2006, Hassan Nasrallah vowed to strike Tel Aviv in retaliation for Israel's bombardment of Lebanon's capital. "If you hit Beirut, the Islamic resistance will hit Tel Aviv and is able to do that with God's help," Nasrallah said in a televised address. He added that Hezbollah forces were inflicting heavy casualties on Israeli ground troops.[31]

During the conflict, Nasrallah came under intense criticism from Arab countries, including Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned on 14 July of the risk of "the region being dragged into adventurism that does not serve Arab interests," while the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal called the Hezbollah attacks "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts." He went further, saying, "These acts will pull the whole region back to years ago, and we cannot simply accept them."[32]

Nasrallah also came under intense criticism from some in Lebanon. Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and the most prominent leader of the Druze community, spoke out quite forcefully: "Great, so he's a hero. But I'd like to challenge this heroism of his. I have the right to challenge it, because my country is in flames. Besides, we did not agree".[33] Jumblatt is also quoted as saying: "He is willing to let the Lebanese capital burn while he haggles over terms of surrender".[33]

At the end of the 2006 war, Nasrallah's speech solidified his public image as a "charismatic leader in the media age," according to Dina Matar, a scholar of Arab media. The speech made him a "symbol of pan-Arab national heroism" and it included this appeal to the Lebanese nation:

Our victory is not the victory of the party... it is not the victory of a party or a community; rather it is a victory for Lebanon, for the real Lebanese people, and every free person in the world... Your resistance, which offered in the 2000 victory a model for liberation, offered in the year 2006 a model for steadfastness; legendary steadfastness and miraculous steadfastness. It is strong proof for all Arabs and Muslims, and all rulers, armies and peoples... The Lebanese resistance provided strong proof to all Arab and Islamic armies...[5]

What is known as the "Green Flood" (Al-sayl al-akhdhar) came after the war, according to Iranian-born journalist Amir Taheri. "This refers to the massive amounts of U.S. dollar notes that Hezbollah is distributing among all the citizens that were effected from the war in Beirut and the south. The dollars from Iran are ferried to Beirut via Syria and distributed through networks of militants. Anyone who can prove that his home was damaged in the war receives $12,000, a tidy sum in wartorn Lebanon".[34]

In a TV interview aired on Lebanon's New TV station on 27 August 2006, Nasrallah said that he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers if he had known it would lead to such a war: "We do not think, even one percent, that the capture led to a war at this time and of this magnitude. I'm convinced and sure that this war was planned and that the capture of these hostages was just their excuse to start their pre-planned war, but if I had known on July 11... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not".[35][36]

Syrian Civil War

On 25 May 2013, Nasrallah announced that Hezbollah is fighting in the Syrian civil war against "Islamist extremists" and "pledged that his group will not allow Syrian militants to control areas that border Lebanon".[37] He confirmed that Hezbollah was fighting in the strategic Syrian town of Qusair on the same side as the Syrian army.[37] In the televised address, he said, "If Syria falls in the hands of America, Israel and the takfiris, the people of our region will go into a dark period."[37]

In July 2014, Nasrallah's nephew was killed fighting in Syria.[38] On 27 September 2024, his daughter, Zainab, was killed by an Israeli airstrike.[39]

Views on international politics

Approach to Israel

In his anti-Israel statements, Nasrallah has called for the end of the State of Israel, and opposed reconciliation, as the only path to justice.."[40][41][42] He has also highlighted Israel's nuclear weapons as a security threat. [43][44]

Despite declaring "death to Israel" and "death to America" in his public appearances, Nasrallah said in an interview to The New Yorker in 2003: "At the end of the road, no one can go to war on behalf of the Palestinians, even if that one is not in agreement with what the Palestinians agreed on."[45] When asked in 2004 whether he was prepared to live with a two-state settlement between Israel and Palestine, he said he would not sabotage what is a "Palestinian matter", but that until such a settlement is reached, he will continue to encourage Palestinian resistance.[46]

While reading the party's new political manifesto in 2009, Nasrallah disavowed opposition to Jews, only to Israel: "Our problem with [the Israelis] is not that they are Jews, but that they are occupiers who are raping our land and holy places."[47] Speaking on Al Quds Day on 2 August 2013, Nasrallah said that Israel "is a cancer that must be eradicated."[48][49]

On 11 September 2001 attacks and the United States

  • "What do the people who worked in those two World Trade Center towers, along with thousands of employees, women and men, have to do with war that is taking place in the Middle East?... Therefore we condemned this act—and any similar act we condemn... I said nothing about the Pentagon, meaning we remain silent. We neither favored nor opposed that act... Well, of course, the method of Osama bin Laden, and the fashion of bin Laden, we do not endorse them. And many of the operations that they have carried out, we condemned them very clearly."[50]

On 7 October 2023, attacks on Israel

While calling for the "liberation" of Jerusalem and mentioning Israel as a "Zionist existence", he called the attacks of Hamas on Israel on 7 October 2023 a heroic operation. Nasrallah had said that Hezbollah's missile and drone attacks against northern Israel, which began immediately after 7 October, were carried out in solidarity with the Palestinians.[15]

Views attributed to Nasrallah

Nasrallah visiting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran on 1 August 2005
  • According to Saudi state-owned Al Arabiya, a video posted on their site is of Nasrallah giving a speech circa 1988 in which he states, "Our plan, to which we, as faithful believers, have no alternative, is to establish an Islamic state... Lebanon should not be an Islamic republic on its own, but rather, part of the Greater Islamic Republic, governed by the Master of Time [the Mahdi], and his rightful deputy, the Jurisprudent Ruler, Imam Khomeini,"[51]
  • According to the pro-Israeli group CAMERA, Nasrallah said that "The Lebanese refuse to give the Palestinians residing in Lebanon Lebanese citizenship, and we refuse their resettlement in Lebanon. There is Lebanese consensus on this... we thank God that we all agree on one clear and definite result; namely, that we reject the resettlement of the Palestinians in Lebanon."[44] There is broad consensus in Lebanon against the permanent resettlement of Palestinians, due to fears that it could reignite Lebanon's civil war.[52] Likewise, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon consistently favor right of return over Lebanese naturalization.[53]
  • Lebanese writer, Amal Saad-Ghorayeb quotes Hassan Nasrallah as saying, "If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli."[43] Charles Glass questions the attribution of the quote to Nasrallah, noting that both the footnote in Saad-Ghorayeb's book and her original dissertation instead attribute the quote to an interview she conducted with a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese Parliament, Muhammad Fneish.[54][55]
  • According to Israeli military source Shaul Shay, Nasrallah has often made anti-Semitic statements that not only revile Israel as a state, but also the entire Jewish people, while using themes taken from classic and Muslim antisemitism.[56] Two of the claims he makes are that:
    • In a 1998 speech marking the Day of Ashura, and published in what was Hassan Nasrallah's official website[57][58][59] at that time, Nasrallah referred to Israel as "the state of the grandsons of apes and pigs – the Zionist Jews" and condemned them as "the murderers of the prophets."[60][61][62] The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), a pro-Israel media watchdog group, MEMRI, and Shaul Shai interpret this language as broadly antisemitic.[44][60][62]
    • Nasrallah said in a speech delivered in Beirut and aired on Al-Manar TV on 28 September 2001: "What do the Jews want? They want security and money. Throughout history the Jews have been Allah's most cowardly and avaricious creatures. If you look all over the world, you will find no one more miserly or greedy than they are."[56]
  • According to Newsweek, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Robert Satloff, in a speech carried during Ashura on 9 April 2000, Hassan Nasrallah said that: "The Jews invented the legend of the Nazi atrocities. It is clear that the numbers they talk about are greatly exaggerated".[63][64][65][66]
  • Journalist Badih Chayban in a 23 October 2002 article in The Daily Star wrote that Nasrallah said, "If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide." Charles Glass believes that the quotation was likely a fabrication, citing other published accounts of Nasrallah's speech that had no reference to the anti-Semitic comment, and unconfirmed statements by an unnamed person who Glass said is the editor-in-chief of the Lebanese newspaper which published the quotes, that questioned both the translation and the "agenda of the translator."[67] However, the Nasrallah speech in question is published on Hezbollah's website.[68] Chayban shared the link with Glass, who did not correct his accusations accordingly. Glass also wrote that a Hezbollah spokeswoman, Wafa Hoteit, denied that Nasrallah made the statement.[67] More recently, the relevant excerpt from the speech, along with Arabic transcription and English translation, have been published online.[69]
  • According to the US-Israeli organisation MEMRI, in a speech aired on Al-Manar and Al-Jazeera in 2006, Nasrallah expressed support for Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy calling him a "great French philosopher" who "proved (sic) that this Holocaust is a myth".[70]
  • During the 2006 Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Nasrallah declared in a speech aired on Al-Manar TV and Al-Jazeera TV that: "If there had been a Muslim to carry out Imam Khomeini's fatwā against the renegade Salman Rushdie, this rabble who insult our Prophet Mohammed in Denmark, Norway and France would not have dared to do so. I am sure there are millions of Muslims who are ready to give their lives to defend our prophet's honour and we have to be ready to do anything for that."[70][71]
  • On 24 February 2012, in a speech in Nabi Sheet for the "remembrance of the fallen martyrs Abbas al-Musawi, Ragheb Harb, and Imad Mughniyah," Hassan Nasrallah said, "I say that the American administration and the American mentality lacks nothing from Satanism. But that kind of behavior and that kind of mistreatment of holy books [referring to the Quran burning incident in Afghanistan in February 2012][72] and prophets, and the prophets' sanctities, and others' sanctities; this behavior is Israeli and let us say it is Jewish, between quotation marks–now they will say that this is anti-Semitism–[but] the Holy Quran told us about this people: how they attacked their prophets, and how they killed their prophets, and how they affronted their prophets, and how they affronted Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, and how they affronted Mary, peace be upon her, and how they affronted Allah's great messenger Mohammad, May God exalt and bring peace upon him and his family. This [behavior] pattern about affronting holy books, and prophets, and messengers, and sanctities; this is their mentality, and maybe they want to push things more and more toward a religious war worldwide."[73]
  • On 2 September 2019, a day after rocket strikes toward Israeli's border, Hassan Nasrallah said Hezbollah would begin targeting Israeli drones flying in Lebanese airspace, and announced there were "no more red lines" in the fight against Israel. If attacked again, he said, Hezbollah would strike "deep inside" Israel.[74]

2008 alleged assassination attempt

On 15 October 2008, Iraqi news source Almalaf, reported that Nasrallah had been poisoned the previous week, quoting sources in Lebanon, and that he was saved by Iranian doctors who went to Lebanon to treat him. The sources told the paper that a particularly poisonous chemical substance was used against the Shia militia leader. His medical condition was apparently critical for several days until Iranian doctors came and managed to save his life. Almalaf claimed that the sources believed it was highly likely that the poisoning was an Israeli assassination attempt.[75]

Hezbollah denied that Nasrallah had been poisoned.[76] Lebanese parliament member Al-Hajj Hassan, a member of Hezbollah, said: "This is a lie and a fabrication. It's true that I haven't seen Nasrallah this past week, but he's okay." The Iranian doctors arrived on Sunday at approximately 11:00 P.M., apparently on a special military flight. According to Almalaf officials considered flying Nasrallah to Iran for further treatment.[77]

On 25 October 2008, in an interview with the Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar channel, Nasrallah denied the assassination attempt, accusing the Israelis and Americans of fabricating the story and considering it as part of the ongoing psychological war against Hezbollah that aimed to imply that the party was suffering from internal disputes and assassination plots.[76]

Nasrallah also said that "if research was done on the internet websites posting such unfounded information, it would reveal that they are all being run from that same dark room, and that their aim is to serve American-Israeli interests."[78] He added that at first the organization had considered denying the false information with a written message, "but when the news agencies began to publish it we decided to hold a televised interview, and here I am before you telling you I was not poisoned."[79]

Death

Main article: 2024 Hezbollah headquarters strike

On 27 September 2024, the Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike on Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut, reportedly targeting Nasrallah.[80] At least six people were killed and over 90 injured following the strike, with several missing.[81][82][83] The following day, the IDF stated that Nasrallah had died in the strike; Hezbollah and Lebanese authorities later confirmed his death.[83]

The Economist wrote that his death would "reshape" Lebanon and the Middle East in ways which "would have been unthinkable a year ago" and that the next leader of Hezbollah would face the "most precarious moment" in the organization's history owing to Israel's destruction of almost their entire leadership. The Economist felt the Lebanese public perceived the group as "humiliated" and had come to resent their domination of Lebanese politics.[84]

Legacy

Image

A child holding an image of Hassan Nasrallah at a parade during his speech

By playing a key part in ending the Israeli occupation, Nasrallah became a "national hero" in Lebanon.[85] A New York Times article reported that an Arab politician called him as the "most powerful man in the Middle East" and the "only Arab leader who actually does what he says he's going to do".[86] Al Jazeera compared him to other Arab leaders such as Yasser Arafat and Gamal Abdel Nasser, and leftist revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Fidel Castro,[87] while journalist Annia Ciezadlo described him as an "emblem of Islam and Arab pride".[88] Writer and analyst Amal Saad-Ghorayeb said that he is "passionate" but also "plainspoken and practical".[88]

Nasrallah was often referred to as "al-Sayyid Hassan" (السيد حسن), the honorific "Sayyid" denoting a claim of descent from the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his grandson Husayn ibn Ali.[89]

Among anti-Assad Syrians, particularly those in opposition-held areas like Idlib, Nasrallah was often despised. Many saw him as being complicit in the atrocities committed by the Assad regime during the Syrian civil war. Following reports of Nasrallah's assassination, jubilant celebrations erupted in parts of Syria, especially among those opposed to the Assad regime.[90]

Graffiti of Hassan Nasrallah with a pager in Tel Aviv, Israel in September 2024

Two popular songs were written about Nasrallah during the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War, with vastly different views of the Hezbollah leader: "The Hawk of Lebanon" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,[91] and "Yalla Ya Nasrallah", against Nasrallah, in Israel.[92][93]

In 2007, Lebanese singer Alaa Zalzali composed a tribute song entitled "Ya Nasrallah".[94] Another popular song composed in tribute to him was by Lebanese Christian singer Julia Boutros, called "Ahebba'i", meaning "my loved ones", which was inspired by Nasrallah's words in a televised message he sent to Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon during the 2006 war.[95]

Personal life

Nasrallah married Fatima Mustafa Yassine in 1978.[96] They had four sons and one daughter, namely Mohammad Hadi Hassan Nasrallah, Mohammad Jawad Hassan Nasrallah, Zeinab Hassan Nasrallah, Mohammad Ali Hassan Nasrallah, and Mohammad Mahdi Hassan Nasrallah.[97][98]

On the night of 12 September 1997, four Hezbollah fighters were killed in an Israeli ambush near Mlikh. One of the dead was eighteen-year-old Muhammad Hadi, Nasrallah's eldest son. Five Lebanese soldiers and a woman were killed in a simultaneous airstrike north of the security zone. The attacks were seen as a response to the operation a week earlier in which twelve Israeli commandos were killed. Nasrallah was quoted as saying on receiving the news of his son's death: "I am proud to be the father of one of the martyrs".[99][100]

When the IDF released photos of his son's body and offered to exchange it for body parts of those killed in the earlier ambush, Nasrallah responded: "Keep it. We have many more men like Hadi ready to offer themselves to the struggle". There was a seven-day mourning period held in south Beirut, which was attended by an estimated two hundred thousand people daily.[99][100] His son's remains were returned to Lebanon in 2004, as part of the prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hezbollah where Nasrallah played a major role.[20] According to Syrian opposition media, Nasrallah was the brother-in-law of Hezbollah commander Wissam al-Tawil, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in January 2024.[101]

On 25 May 2024, Hezbollah media said that Nasrallah's mother, Hajja Umm Hassan, had died.[102]

See also

References

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Hassan Nasrallah, who led the militant Hezbollah organization in Lebanon for more than three decades and built it into a domestic political force and potent regional military power with ballistic missiles that could threaten Tel Aviv, was killed on Friday in heavy Israeli airstrikes just south of Beirut. He was 64.

Both Hezbollah and Israel announced his death on Saturday. Israeli officials had said that Mr. Nasrallah was the target of the attack, which rocked the area known as the Dahiya, a dense urban area south of the capital, with such violent force that residents fled in fear as a giant mushroom cloud rose over the city.

For almost two decades, since Hezbollah fought a monthlong war against Israel in 2006, Mr. Nasrallah had largely avoided public appearances and eschewed using a telephone out of concern that he would be assassinated.

In recent weeks, Israel had carried out repeated airstrikes in the same area to kill other top Hezbollah commanders, including some founding members who had been with the organization since it was established in the early 1980s to fight the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.

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Mr. Nasrallah took over the group in 1992, at 32, after an Israeli rocket killed his predecessor. Over the years, his black beard turned white beneath the black turban that marked him as a revered Shiite Muslim cleric and a sayyid, a man who can trace his ancestry back to the Prophet Muhammad.

Throughout his career, he stuck to his central message: that Israel was a foreign and threatening presence in the region that needed to be removed, and that it was the job of every Muslim to contribute to the struggle.

ImageMr. Nasrallah wearing a black turban and glasses.
Mr. Nasrallah in 2002 during an interview with The New York Times.Credit...James Hill for The New York Times

In Lebanon, Mr. Nasrallah developed a force of thousands of grass-roots fighters — schoolteachers and butchers and truck drivers — and used religion to inspire them to fight until death, analysts say, telling them they would have a guaranteed spot in heaven.

As the head of the strongest militia that Iran helped build in the region — and one of the most heavily armed nonstate forces in the world — Mr. Nasrallah extended the group’s reach well beyond Lebanon. Hezbollah fighters were instrumental in shoring up the government of another ally, President Bashar al-Assad, next door in Syria when it was threatened by a popular uprising that started in 2011. Designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Hezbollah has helped to train Hamas fighters as well as militias in Iraq and Yemen.

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In Lebanon, Mr. Nasrallah enjoyed tremendous devotion from Hezbollah’s Shiite Muslim base, who saw in him a charismatic religious and political leader and military strategist who had dedicated his life to “resistance,” or the fight against Israel and American influence in the Middle East.

For the Israelis, he was a hated terrorist who represented a perpetual threat on their northern border, and over the years, he displayed a ruthlessness in pursuing his goals.

In his speeches, especially in the years before his public appearances diminished, he often echoed the fierce anti-Israel, anti-American rhetoric that had become a trademark of Iran’s Islamic revolution. “This is a cancerous presence,” he said of Israel during a rally in 2013 to mark Jerusalem Day, an Iranian-inspired holiday dedicated to calling for the liberation of Jerusalem, which he did all the time, anyway. “We all know that the nature of cancer is to spread in the body, and to kill. And the only solution for cancer is to uproot it, to not surrender to it, and to not give it an opportunity.”

He often referred to Israel as “the Zionist entity” and maintained that Jewish people who arrived from other countries over decades should return to their nations of origin, and said that Israel should be replaced by the state of Palestine, with equality for all residents.

“Israel represents a huge, permanent problem to all the states and the peoples in this region and their abilities, decisions, security, dignity, stability and sovereignty,” he said in the same 2013 speech.

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Israeli officials and others often closely monitored his speeches for indications of what he planned to do.

He was known, according to Arab tradition, as Abu Hadi or father of Hadi. His eldest son, Hadi, was 18 when he died in September 1997 in a firefight with the Israelis. The moniker was a reminder of Mr. Nasrallah’s personal credibility and commitment to the fight. He is believed to be survived by his wife and four other children, including one daughter.

“He is sort of the physical embodiment of this cause. He sacrificed his son, his whole life,” said Amal Saad, a Hezbollah expert and lecturer in political science and international relations at Cardiff University. “People see him as this heroic, almost mythical figure who embodies all the attributes of justice and liberation.”

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A large crowd holding flags gathers under a sky with thunderclouds, lightning and a firework.
Supporters of Hezbollah watched a televised speech by Mr. Nasrallah in 2018, urging them to participate in forthcoming elections.Credit...Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

Yoel Guzansky, who served on Israel’s National Security Council and is now a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, described Mr. Nasrallah as both “a horrific killer” and “very intelligent.”

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“He’s a strategist,” Mr. Guzansky said, before Mr. Nasrallah’s death was announced, adding that he had a deep understanding of Israeli politics that he used to try to sway the Israeli public to pressure their government. “He’s a master in what he’s doing.”

In 1983, suicide bombing attacks against first the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, then the barracks of American and French peacekeepers, killed at least 360 people, including 241 American service members. The murderous attacks were claimed by the Islamic Jihad Organization, considered a precursor to Hezbollah, and some of those suspected of planning it later became top commanders under Mr. Nasrallah.

In the hierarchical rankings of Shiite Muslim clergy, Mr. Nasrallah was a rather ordinary hojatolislam, one step below an ayatollah, and far below a mujtahid, or “source of emulation,” to be followed as a guide. He was believed to live modestly and rarely socialized outside Hezbollah’s ruling circles.

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A man drives by a billboard of Mr. Nasrallah with people seated beneath it.
Mr. Nasrallah on a large poster in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2017.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Mr. Nasrallah was one of the Arab world’s most distinctive orators, with a robust command of classical Arabic that he spiced with common Lebanese phrases. He laced his speeches with references to restoring lost Arab virility, a message that resonated across a region long suffering from a sense of impotence in the face of Israel and its powerful Western backers.

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He came across as less dour than most Shiite clerics, partly because of his roly-poly figure, a slight lisp and a propensity to crack jokes. He never pushed hard-line Islamic rules, like veils for women in the neighborhoods that Hezbollah controls. Analysts attributed that to his exposure in his youth to many of Lebanon’s 17 religious sects and his desire not to isolate Lebanese outside of Hezbollah’s religious Shiite base.

He could be by turns avuncular and menacing.

Walid Jumblatt, the chieftain of the Druse sect and at times an outspoken critic of Mr. Nasrallah, once said he found the combination unsettling. “Sometimes the eyes of people betray them,” he said. “When he’s calm, he’s laughing. He’s very nice. But when he’s a little bit squeezed, he looks at you in the eyes fiercely with fiery eyes.”

The state within a state that Mr. Nasrallah helped to build with Iranian and expatriate financing as Lebanon struggled to emerge from a long civil war that ended in 1990 included hospitals, schools and other social services. In a country where the government struggled to keep the lights on and to collect the garbage, Hezbollah’s ability to organize accounted for a great deal of its efficacy and helped build its popularity.

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A darkened street with a stream of light running down the middle toward buildings and minarets.
Beirut in 2021. Many in the country have grown accustomed to blackouts and fuel shortages amid an economic crisis.Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times

In 2000, he gained new respect in Lebanon and beyond after years of guerrilla warfare forced the Israeli military to withdraw from a strip of southern Lebanon that it had controlled since it invaded the country in 1982.

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In 2005, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated by a huge suicide truck bomb in downtown Beirut. An international tribunal later indicted four members of Hezbollah, although ultimately only one was convicted in absentia. The killing was believed to have been organized by the Syrian government, which had been determined to thwart Mr. Hariri’s attempts to loosen the grip of Syria’s security forces on the country. Mr. Nasrallah warned Lebanese against cooperating with the tribunal.

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Several people stand in front of a large crater littered with debris. Damaged buildings and more debris are behind them.
The crater left after a huge explosion killed Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut in 2005.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

The 2006 war, which Hezbollah set off by capturing two Israeli soldiers during a cross-border raid, raged for 34 days and caused widespread destruction and more than 1,100 deaths in Lebanon and 150 in Israel, but ended up bolstering Hezbollah’s regional standing.

The war ended with both sides declaring victory, and Hezbollah was lauded across the Arab world for fighting Israel head on and not losing. After the war, fans in Cairo, Damascus and other Arab capitals publicly displayed his photograph, and Mr. Nasrallah apologized to the Lebanese, saying that he would have avoided the war if he had known how destructive it would be. It was a rare statement of contrition for an Arab leader.

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The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that called for Hezbollah to disarm and for only a United Nations force and the Lebanese Army to deploy in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah rejected both demands, arguing that its arms were necessary to defend Lebanon against Israel. Critics called that stance a pretext for Hezbollah to keep the weapons that gave the group an outsize role in Lebanese politics.

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One man trapped under rubble is aided by another, who tried to pull him out.
After an Israeli airstrike destroyed a building in Tyre, Lebanon, during the war in 2006, one man helped another who had fallen and was hurt.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

In 2008, the Lebanese government moved to dismantle Hezbollah’s private communications network, a move that Mr. Nasrallah called a declaration of war on the group. Hezbollah fighters stormed West Beirut, routing fighters that backed the government in deadly street battles. Hezbollah’s turning its guns on other Lebanese was seen as a betrayal by the group’s critics and taken as proof that its purpose was not solely to fight Israel.

In sending fighters to defend Mr. Assad, a fellow ally of Iran, Mr. Nasrallah framed the conflict as part of the fight against Israel, even once claiming that “the road to Jerusalem” ran through Aleppo, a Syrian city 180 miles in the other direction. Arab critics blasted Hezbollah for fighting and imposing painful sieges on fellow Muslims while keeping Lebanon’s border with Israel calm.

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Fighters gathered in and out of vehicles on a hillside.
Hezbollah fighters at the border between Lebanon and Syria in 2017.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Mr. Nasrallah initially tried to keep himself above Lebanon’s messy domestic politics, but that proved impossible as members of his party accepted cabinet positions and won more and more seats in Parliament. His standing took another blow in Lebanon in 2019, when protesters took to the streets to decry the country’s notoriously corrupt ruling class amid a painful economic collapse. Some demonstrators hung effigies of Mr. Nasrallah alongside those of other political figures, considering him part of the group whose selfish policies had ruined the country.

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After a large stockpile of ammonium nitrate stored in a hangar in the port of Beirut blew up in August 2020, killing more than 120 people and damaging nearby neighborhoods, Mr. Nasrallah worked with Lebanon’s politicians to freeze the official investigation as the inquiry focused on some of Hezbollah’s political allies. The inquiry was never completed.

Born in 1960 in Beirut, Mr. Nasrallah grew up in a mixed neighborhood of impoverished Christian Armenians, Druse, Palestinians and Shiites where his father had a vegetable stand. The eruption of the civil war in 1975 forced the family to flee to their native village in the south.

The oldest of nine children and deeply devout from a young age, he decamped for the most famous Shiite hawza, or seminary, in Najaf, Iraq. He fled in 1978 one step ahead of Saddam Hussein’s secret police, returning to Lebanon to join Amal, then a new Shiite militia. He became its Bekaa Valley commander in his early 20s.

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People and damaged vehicles in a dusty scene with debris.
The aftermath of a truck bombing of a United States Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983.Credit...Jim Bourdier/Associated Press

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He studied briefly at a seminary in Qum, Iran, in 1989, and considered Iran’s Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 to be the best model for Shiites to end their historic second-class status in the Muslim world.

Security around Mr. Nasrallah has long been extraordinary. When he granted a rare interview to The New York Times in 2002, the reporter and photographer were blindfolded and driven around the southern suburbs of Beirut for a short time before the meeting. His security team then inspected absolutely everything that would enter the room, even unscrewing the pens to make sure that they contained only ink.

Hezbollah began firing into Israel on Oct. 8 last year, a day after the war in Gaza started, and Hezbollah and Israel had engaged in tit-for-tat exchanges ever since. Despite the constant threat of a full-scale war, Mr. Nasrallah appeared reluctant to unleash Hezbollah’s full arsenal, estimated at tens of thousands of missiles, given that many Lebanese, weary of grinding economic problems and general chaos, might have penalized the party for dragging them into an unwanted war. It also seemed that Iran hoped to avoid expending an arsenal devised as its forward line of defense against any Israeli attack.

On Sept. 19, in his last televised remarks, he blamed Israel for the exploding pagers and walkie-talkies that killed dozens of his foot soldiers and wounded several thousand more in the days before. “This retribution will come,” he said. “Its manner, size, how and where — these are things we will certainly keep to ourselves, in the narrowest circles even among us.”

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Several men sitting arranged at cafe tables watching a television.
Watching a speech by Mr. Nasrallah this month in Beirut.Credit...Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times


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