Author: M Barbu

A pivotal mission marks a turning point in the conflict, impacting Hezbollah and the future of the Middle East.

In a historic and high-stakes operation, Israel’s Air Force has successfully eliminated Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, marking a critical milestone in the ongoing conflict. Brig. Gen. Amichai Levin, commander of Hatzerim Air Force Base, confirmed the strategic importance of this mission during a joint interview with Lt. Col. M, commander of the elite 69th “Hammers” Squadron, responsible for executing the strike.

Israeli ground forces crossed into southern Lebanon early Tuesday, marking a significant escalation of an offensive against Hezbollah militants and opening a new front in a yearlong war against its Iranian-backed adversaries.

The general secretary of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, is gone. Decades of his reign over Hezbollah, his personal connection to the spiritual leader Khamenei, and his everlasting equations – all gone. He may be mourned by his followers, maybe even by Hezbollah experts, who have studied Nasrallah for years, but many are celebrating. Many more than you could imagine. The reason for it is much more complex, much more delicate and sensitive, and far more dangerous than meets the eye. This is unexpected, and mind-blowing but makes a lot of sense. Where did the intel come from? Who played along? Why would anyone double-cross the undisputed leader and “guardian of Lebanon” and the best friend of the Iranian homeland? To understand it fully, you have to know the basic facts.

An Israeli victory against Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon is vital to guaranteeing the security of the entire Western alliance. It will send a clear signal to Iran — Hezbollah’s paymasters — that the ayatollahs’ unremitting campaign against the West and its allies is ultimately doomed to failure.

[A]n estimated 90,000 Israelis being forced to flee their homes, leaving large swathes of northern Israel deserted. Hezbollah has said that those Israelis will not be able to return to their homes, raising concerns that Hezbollah, which had been planning to invade northern Israel, might also be planning to occupy it.

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.