Answers to important questions What does the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah mean?

Some saw Hassan Nasrallah as number two behind Iran's supreme leader. The consequences of his death in the conflict with Israel are completely open. An equally dangerous power vacuum is emerging in Lebanon.

Keystone-SDA

28.09.2024, 16:05

SDA

Six buildings south of Beirut collapse into mountains of rubble after heavy explosions when Israel's army attacks the headquarters of the Shia militia Hezbollah. Its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah is killed. Nasrallah's death, confirmed first by Israel and then by Hezbollah, is like a thunderclap in the Middle East. The most important questions:

What will become of Hezbollah now?

The death of its charismatic leader, who was actually considered the most powerful man in Lebanon, has left the Shiite organization headless, so to speak. Without a leader and after the killing of almost the entire top leadership, it is unclear who within Hezbollah could now give the orders, including for further attacks on Israel. It will presumably await instructions from Iran. Iran is the actual protecting power and Hezbollah's most important supporter. How Iran will react remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that after massive waves of attacks by Israel, Hezbollah is weaker and more humiliated than it has been for years.

Will the militia name a successor?

That is probably only a matter of time. Hezbollah appoints its leaders in mostly secret and rather opaque procedures. But one name for the successor is already in circulation: Hashem Safi al-Din, head of the Hezbollah Executive Council, is considered the most promising candidate. He is a cousin of Nasrallah and the father of the son-in-law of the powerful Iranian general Ghassem Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone strike in Iraq in 2020. Safi al-Din is said to have been groomed for a leadership role within Hezbollah since the 1990s. According to Arab media reports, he was most recently responsible for financial matters and daily operations within the militia.

How significant is Nasrallah's death?

Nasrallah was one of the most important figures in the so-called "Axis of Resistance", in which Iran fights with allied militias in the region against the declared arch-enemy Israel. In some quarters, he was even regarded as the number two behind Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. The editor-in-chief of the Lebanese newspaper "L'Orient Le Jour", Anthony Samrani, wrote that the killing was even more significant than that of top general Soleimani in 2020 and that of Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network and mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the USA.

"He was our bin Laden times 10, killing our civilians for more than 30 years while helping other terrorist organizations get better at killing us," wrote Nadav Pollak, a lecturer at Israel's Reichman University. For his supporters, Nasrallah had an almost god-like status.

What consequences will his death have for the conflict with Israel?

That remains to be seen; there are various scenarios. The now headless organization could, for example, despite all the setbacks, try to respond to this attack with particular violence - also to show that it is still capable of attacking at all. This could take the form of a coordinated attack by the militias in Iraq and Yemen or again from Iran itself.

If Hezbollah does not withdraw from the southern border with Israel as demanded, a limited ground offensive by the Israeli army to keep the pressure on the militia high would not be out of the question. However, such fighting could be advantageous for Hezbollah, which has already waged a kind of guerrilla war against Israel in the south. Because Hezbollah and Hamas have been significantly weakened in the Gaza war, the Houthi militia in Yemen in particular could gain in importance as Tehran's ally.

What does death mean for Lebanon?

Nasrallah's death has created a power vacuum in the small country on the Mediterranean, which has been without a president and effectively without a government for two years. For the time being, there are no signs from Iran that it wants to fill the gap as Hezbollah's most important supporter. A new power struggle between other groups in the sectarian country therefore also seems possible. Opponents of Hezbollah are likely to see this as a unique opportunity to permanently dismantle Hezbollah's structures within the state and re-establish stronger government control. However, there could also be a major breakdown in security in the country, new sectarian conflicts and overall chaotic conditions. The country already experienced a bloody civil war from 1975 to 1990.