Author: M Barbu

On 17 September 2024, in an unprecedented development, thousands of pagers reportedly belonging to the members of the Hezbollah cadres exploded across Lebanon. The explosions, which appeared to be large-scale, coordinated attacks, killed more than 40 people and injured thousands. A day later, in the apparent second wave of attacks, walkie-talkies exploded in Hezbollah strongholds in eastern and southern parts of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Both Hezbollah and Lebanon blamed Israel. These attacks mark a new phase of hostilities in the latest round of conflict in West Asia. However, it also opens a new chapter in electronic sabotage and offensive cyber operations.

After decades of leading Hezbollah and overseeing its rise both in Lebanon and in the region, Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut.

BEIRUT — Hezbollah’s powerful leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in a major Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Friday, marking a significant blowback for the group.

How much of a setback to Hezbollah is the Nasrallah killing?

It is a huge, potential game-changer. Nasrallah’s death is a crushing blow: one that follows on the heels of the systematic elimination by Israel of most of Hezbollah’s military leadership. In recent weeks, Israel has killed Fuad Shukr, head of Hezbollah’s strategic division and the movement’s most senior military authority; Ibrahim Aqil, the group’s operational chief who was responsible for Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit as well as that unit’s commander, Wissam al-Tawil; and over a dozen other senior commanders. Yet another senior commander, Ali Karaki, responsible for the group’s southern front adjoining Israel, was reportedly killed along with Nasrallah. Coupled with Israel’s sabotage detonation of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah for the communication of orders and important instructions, the group has likely been rendered operationally inert—at least for the foreseeable future.

Latest Developments

The leader of Hamas in Lebanon, who doubled up as a prominent educator employed by UNRWA — the UN agency solely dedicated to the descendants of Palestinian refugees — was killed in an Israeli air strike in the south of the country, Hamas confirmed on September 30.

How Nasrallah’s death remade the strategic landscape

During a year of conflict in the Middle East, Israel and the Palestinians have bled while Iran and its regional allies have benefited at virtually no cost. Now Israel appears to have reshaped the landscape with its devastating war on Iran’s most powerful proxy, Hezbollah, in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s leadership is decimated, its command and control in disarray, and its intelligence and inner workings thoroughly penetrated, exposed, and vulnerable. Its personnel and heavy equipment are being degraded on a daily basis. Tehran’s strategy of relying on Hezbollah and other militant groups to provide an Arab-forward defense against Israeli or American attacks on Iran’s homeland or nuclear facilities appears to be failing, potentially decisively.

The news of the September 27, 2024 assassination of Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike was joyfully welcomed by members of the Syrian opposition. They took to the street in droves in several cities, setting off fireworks and distributing sweets; some even carried signs expressing their gratitude to Israel. The euphoria that they had been feeling as Israel’s elimination of senior members of Hizbullah, an ally of the Bashar Al-Assad regime in the war against the Syrian opposition, had gained momentum was now at its peak. Syrian oppositionists also expressed their joy on social media, calling the day of Nasrallah’s killing one of the happiest of their lives.

Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah and Houthi militias raise fears of wider conflict

Palestinian militant group Hamas said an Israeli strike killed its leader in Lebanon on Monday, while another Palestinian militant group said three of its leaders were killed in a strike on Beirut, the first attack within the city limits.

Dans Géopolitique de la colère. De la globalisation heureuse au grand courroux, dont une seconde édition actualisée et enrichie est parue le 29 août 2024 aux éditions Le Cavalier Bleu, Myriam Benraad, professeure en relations internationales à l’Université internationale Schiller à Paris, aborde la question des émotions dont découlent de nombreux conflits contemporains et qui contaminent toutes les interactions sociales et tous les rapports politiques. La réflexion qui suit, tirée de cet ouvrage, appréhende la colère comme un affect dominant dans le déclenchement et la prolongation d’une majorité de crises récentes au Moyen-Orient – celles à Gaza et en Syrie plus particulièrement. Comment, au sein de cet espace géopolitique singulier, des adversaires répondent-ils à des expressions réciproques de rage ?