Lebanon: the killing of Hassan Nasrallah leaves Hezbollah leaderless and vulnerable

The assassination of Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, in an Israeli airstrike on September 28 is a decisive blow – not only to Hezbollah, but also to Iran, which has lost its greatest ally in the Middle East.

In recent days, the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has risen to its most intense level since the end of the second Lebanon war in the summer of 2006. The day after Hamas’ brutal October 7 terror attack, in which 1,200 Israelis were massacred – many of them civilians murdered in their homes in towns near the Gaza border or at the nearby Nova music festival – Hezbollah opened another front against Israel.

Hezbollah, which has been designated by the US and UK governments as a terror organisation, was quick to express support and solidarity with Hamas and immediately began launching rockets at civilian and military targets in northern Israel.

Fearing that Hezbollah might carry out a similar incursion in Galilee, resulting in a massacre of the Jewish civilian population, the Israeli government evacuated roughly 100,000 citizens living near the Lebanese border. These people have now been displaced from their homes for a year.

Until recently, the fighting between the parties was characterised by a relatively low intensity. Hezbollah has launched thousands of rockets and drones at Israeli civilian and military targets. These have mainly been in the north of the country, killing dozens of Israelis since October 2023. The IDF has responded with airstrikes and artillery fire against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including rocket depots and other military infrastructure. But to an extent, the exchanges were seen as being below the level that might escalate into all-out war betweeen Israel and Hezbollah.

In July, a Hezbollah rocket attack killed 12 children in a football field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights. In response, three days later, Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s most senior commander, the head of its strategic unit, Fuad Shukr, in an airstrike in Beirut.

The violence has steadily escalated since. On August 25, as Hezbollah was preparing a major rocket attack on the north and centre of Israel, the IDF launched a preemptive strike against Hezbollah missile launchers that were poised to strike at targets within Israel. In mid-September, the Israeli security cabinet announced it had added the return of displaced residents from the cuntry’s north to its war goals.

Days later, in a highly complex operation thousands of Hezbollah pagers exploded, killing dozens and wounding thousands of Hezbollah militants. The following day Hezbollah’s network of walkie talkies was targeted in the same way. Israel has not claimed responsibility for either of these incidents, but what cannot be denied is that they caused considerable damage to Hezbollah’s command and control.

Two days after that, on September 20, Shukr’s successor, Ibrahim Akil, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Dahieh suburb of Beirut, along with dozens of senior commanders of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force.

Operation Northen Arrows

Yet all these moves were only the prelude to Operation Northern Arrows, which began on September 23. The Israeli air force attacked 1,600 Hezbollah targets, including thousands of rocket and missile launchers that had been stored among the civilian population throughout Lebanon.

Hezbollah has responded by firing rockets at Israel, most of which were intercepted by Israel’s air defence systems. It is estimated that Hezbollah had an arsenal of 150,000 rockets, including medium and long-range missiles. Many of these have now been eliminated by Israeli airstrikes. Hezbollah still has precision-guided munitions and drones, but recent Israeli strikes have eliminated much of Hezbollah’s chain of command and severely disrupted its operational equilibrium. The assassination of many of Hezbollah’s senior leadership – and now Nasrallah himself – has all but destroyed the group’s military chain of command.

So far there has been no sign from Tehran that Iran intends to intervene militarily to help Hezbollah. This must call into question the advantage of acting as one of the country’s most important proxies in the region. In this context, many in Beirut, Damascus, Sana'a and Gaza are surely asking themselves now what is the advantage of being Iran’s emissaries, if the latter leaves them alone to face Israel.

Ceasefire unlikely?

As a result, the main hope for Hezbollah – and Lebanon itself, into whose economic and political structures Hezbollah has become so firmly embedded – is that the international community will impose a ceasefire on both sides in an effort to avoid this becoming a wider regional conflict. The US and France have pushed for a 21-day ceasefire. But it seems that, like its fight against Hamas in Gaza, Israel is determined to continue the military operation against Hezbollah.

Now the world is waiting to see whether Israel will send troops into in Lebanon. Already thousands of citizens in the south of the country have fled north. But despite a statement from IDF chief of staff, Maj Gen Herzi Halevi, that the IDF is preparing to launch a ground operation in Lebanon, it is not at all certain that Israel wants to return to Lebanese soil.

In May 2000 the IDF pulled back from southern Lebanon to the international border after 18 years of occupation and in 2006 it did the same in compliance with UN security council resolution 1701.

There’s also a good chance that, given the success of its campaign of airstrikes in neutralising the military threat from Hezbollah, an actual ground invasion may be postponed for now.

The US and other countries, including the UK, have urged Israel to put a hold on any invasion plans and agree a ceasefire. It presents the Biden administration, which is keenly aware of the need to keep both Jewish and Arab voters onside, with a tough choice. But it is hard to believe that Biden, especially during an election campaign and in light of the special relationship between the countries, will put pressure on Jerusalem to stop its fight against Iranian proxy terrorism.

Ori Wertman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.