| Lebanese and Palestinian men hold portraits of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during a protest in Sidon, Lebanon, Sept. 28, 2024 (AP photo by Mohammed Zaatari). |
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Israel-Hezbollah: On Friday, Israeli airstrikes outside Beirut killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which Israel has been targeting with a massive bombing campaign that has killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon in the past two weeks. Hezbollah’s acting leader, Naim Kassem, said earlier today in a televised address that the group is prepared for a long fight against Israel. (AP) |
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Our Take: Kassem’s address to the group’s followers and the Lebanese people more broadly was meant to project an image of calm and order, despite Hezbollah losing not only Nasrallah, who had led the group since 1992, but also numerous other top commanders and officials over the past few months. He said the group has already replaced the other officials and set the stage for a measured selection of a new leader to replace Nasrallah. |
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Still, Israel’s current campaign has clearly caught Hezbollah’s leadership off guard and thrown it off balance. The intensity and extent of the airstrikes have caused extraordinary damage in Lebanon already, including to Hezbollah’s arsenal, leaving the group so far paralyzed in response. The fact that Kassem’s address was televised without a public audience, unlike most of Nasrallah’s speeches, suggests that the group’s leadership is rattled. |
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In the short term, though, it seems almost certain that Hezbollah’s gloves will now come off, especially if Israel launches a ground invasion into Lebanon, as it has hinted at recently. As we wrote last week, such an invasion could actually stabilize Hezbollah, not only because its ground defenses are elaborately prepared—complete with a dedicated landline phone network for secure communications—but because the group’s fighters in southern Lebanon have more autonomy, meaning the leadership vacuum and transition will have less of an impact there. And independent of a potential ground invasion, to the extent that Hezbollah can operationalize its arsenal quickly, the group will now almost certainly look to impose as much cost as possible on Israel. |
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In the long term, too, Hezbollah’s strength and penetration of Lebanese society, not to mention how embedded the group is in Lebanese politics, means that Israel will be unable to eradicate it militarily. That highlights once again the strategic myopia of Israel’s current approach to Gaza and Lebanon: It is viewing them only as military problems, but in reality both will require some sort of political solution preceded by a durable cease-fire. |
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Within Lebanon, the impact of Israel’s war against Hezbollah could be destabilizing as well. Lebanese politics is already in a state of paralysis, amid a political and economic crisis that has embroiled the country since 2019. But that political impasse is the result of a stalemate that has in some ways served as a brake on the reemergence of violent contestation for power in the country. Israel has clearly delivered Hezbollah a punishing blow. If the group ends up severely and decisively weakened, the resulting sudden disruption of Lebanon’s political balance of power could tempt Lebanon’s other sectarian factions to try and fill the vacuum through force. |
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Regardless, however, Lebanon is in no position to respond to the kinds of humanitarian responses that Israel’s attacks are already making necessary. Any further escalation of the conflict will almost certainly plunge the country into even greater chaos. |