LongBench v2 / 66f78ecfbb02136c067c2f12 / How has the United States’ attitude toward Israel-Hezbollah conflict changed…

Biden struggles to contain conflict as
Israel and Hezbollah on the brink
3 days ago
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Tom Bateman
State Department correspondent at the UN
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Full-scale war not in anyone's interest, says US President Joe Biden
US President Joe Biden has spent nearly a year vowing his determination to prevent
the war in Gaza engulfing the wider Middle East. On Tuesday, he repeated that resolve
in his last ever United Nations speech as president, as he addressed the fighting
between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“A diplomatic solution is still possible. In fact, remains the only path to lasting
security,” Biden said.
“Full scale war is not in anyoneʼs interest,” he added.
But the Israel-Lebanon crisis is now on the brink.
0:36
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And Bidenʼs calls for restraint from the podium of the UN, like his pleas for Israel and
Hamas to finally reach a ceasefire and hostage release deal, are being heard in the hall
but not in the region.
On Monday, Israel unleashed hundreds of airstrikes on Lebanon, inflicting the
deadliest day on the country since the end of its bloody, sectarian civil war more than
three decades ago. Israelʼs bombardment killed more than 500 people, according to
Lebanese health officials.
Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed group that dominates the country – reeling and
damaged from Israelʼs wave of exploding pager attacks last week - launched hundreds
of rockets into northern Israel, smashing homes and setting streets ablaze.
Once again the US is trying to restrain Israel, the key regional ally it arms, and urging
its adversaries against escalating too, all the while seeking a diplomatic outcome that
the sides themselves lack either the ability or will to agree.
• Live: Latest news on Israel and Hezbollah
• Explained: What is Hezbollah and why is Israel attacking Lebanon?
• Watch: Hezbollah rockets hit residential areas in Israel
• Analysis: Israel is gambling Hezbollah will crumple but it faces a well-armed, angry
enemy
Israel says itʼs acting to disarm the Lebanese militia so Israeli residents can return to
their homes in the north. Hezbollah says itʼs been striking Israel for the past 11 months
to deter and degrade Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. Months of shuttle
diplomacy by the US envoy Amos Hochstein - building on already established UN
Security Resolutions on Israel and Hezbollah - have come to nothing.
Instead, in another split screen moment as Biden was urging calm at the podium at the
UN, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a video on X vowing: "We
will continue to hit Hezbollah. He who has a missile in his living room and a rocket in
his garage - he will not have a home."
The White House supports what it calls Israelʼs right to hit Hezbollah. But the often
dysfunctional political relationship with the Israeli leadership has again become
apparent over recent weeks, amid serious concerns in the administration that the
exploding pager attacks and subsequent Israeli airstrikes could lead to all out war.
Biden struggles to contain conflict as Israel and Hezboll...



No call between Biden and Netanyahu was announced despite the crisis of the last
week. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently made his tenth trip to the region
since the 7 October attacks but for the first time did not visit Israel. Critics both within
and outside the administration have repeatedly blamed an inability of the White
House to wield influence over Netanyahu on a failure to condition US weapons supply.
The administration categorically rejects this, saying it is committed to Israelʼs defence.
President Biden always believed the key to solving the crisis on the Israel-Lebanon
border, involving 11 months of cross border fire and tens of thousands of people
displaced on either side, was instead clinching the ceasefire deal in Gaza. But this is
badly stalled with few signs either side is willing to reach it. Blinken recently pinned
this on a lack of “political will” by both Israel and Hamas.
The White House denies that it is pursuing a diplomatic effort doomed to defeat – and
that President Biden, with four months left in office, has given up hope of achieving a
breakthrough.
“No, he absolutely hasnʼt given up,” White House National Security Advisor Jake
Sullivan said of Bidenʼs attempts to reach a deal that would end the war in Gaza.
“There have been difficulties and setbacks. Weʼve had challenges getting the [Israeli]
prime minister across the line. Weʼve had challenges getting Hamasʼs leader Sinwar
across the line. But weʼre determined to keep at it,” Mr Sullivan told CNN.
“The president this week in New York will be huddling with other leaders to try to
bring about a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza and really critically, to try and avert
an all-out war in the Middle East.”
Behind the scenes here in New York, a stream of diplomacy is taking place. According
to a senior state department official, the US is presenting allies with potential plans to
resolve the crisis between Israel and Hezbollah.
“Weʼve got some concrete ideas weʼre going to be discussing with allies and partners
this week to try to figure out the way forward on this,” said the official who spoke on
condition of anonymity.
Pressed on what the “concrete ideas” were, the official would not be drawn, noting
instead that while the US does not speak directly to Hezbollah, some of its allies
gathered in New York do and these partners “might have a more refined sense of
Hezbollah thinking so we can stress test our ideas.”
Biden struggles to contain conflict as Israel and Hezboll...



Related
But the official also renewed US opposition to any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon.
And they rejected Israeli officialsʼ reported belief that ramping up the conflict with
Hezbollah could force them into cutting a diplomatic deal that would stabilise the
situation on either side of the Israel-Lebanon border – a strategy referred to as “de-
escalation by escalation”.
“I can't recall, at least in recent memory, a period in which an escalation or
intensification led to a fundamental de escalation and led to profound stabilisation of
the situation,” said the official.
One week on, how the Lebanon attacks have changed the Middle East
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Biden struggles to contain conflict as Israel and Hezboll...
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2024/9/28 10:36


Damage, destruction and fear along the
Israel-Lebanon border
23 July 2024
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Ahmed Nour, Peter Ball and BBC World Service Visual Journalism team
BBC Arabic & BBC World Service
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Israel-Hezbollah: Mapping the scale of damage of cross-bo...
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BBC analysis has uncovered the extent of damage caused by nine months of fighting
between the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and Israel.
Satellite photos, radar imagery and records of military activity show that entire
communities have been displaced, with thousands of buildings and large swathes of
open land damaged on the border between Israel and Lebanon.
Both sides have so far stopped short of all-out war, but evidence shows that near daily
attacks have left communities in both Israel and Lebanon devastated.
The current fighting began when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israeli positions, which the
group said was in solidarity with the Palestinians, a day after the outbreak of the
Israel-Gaza war. Israelʼs military offensive on Gaza was triggered by Hamasʼs
unprecedented attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.
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Data gathered by the US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project
(Acled) and analysed by the BBC suggest both sides together carried out a combined
7,491 cross-border attacks between 8 October 2023 and 5 July 2024. These figures
indicated that Israel has carried out around five times as many as Hezbollah.
The UN says the attacks have forced more than 90,000 people in Lebanon from their
homes, with around 100 civilians and 366 Hezbollah fighters killed in Israeli strikes.
In Israel, officials say 60,000 civilians have had to abandon their homes and 33 people
have been killed, including 10 civilians, because of attacks by Hezbollah.
Southern Lebanon building damage
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Analysis reveals more than 60% of the border communities in Lebanon have suffered
some kind of damage as a result of Israeli air and artillery strikes. As of 10 July, more
than 3,200 buildings may have suffered damage.
The findings were put together by Corey Scher of City University of New York
Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University. They are based
on comparisons of about 500 separate images, revealing changes in the height or
structure of buildings which suggests damage.
The towns of Aita el Shaab, Kfar Kila and Blida appear to have been among the worst
affected.
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Aita el Shaab has been extensively hit, with at least 299 attacks since October,
according to Acled.
Buildings along the main road of the town, including restaurants and shops have
particularly suffered damage.
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The BBC spoke to the mayor of Aita el Shaab, who described the town “as if it was hit
by an earthquake”.
Majed Tehini said 17 people from the town have been killed in the Israeli strikes,
including two civilians.
He left Aita el Shaab with his family immediately after the hostilities started in
October last year, but he said he returned almost every fortnight, mainly to attend
funerals.
“Every time I visit, I feel it has changed. The sight of the destruction is just terrible,” he
told the BBC.
“The houses of Aita have become mere structures. The destroyed ones have been
reduced to rubble. Those still standing are uninhabitable”, he added.
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Mr Tehini recalled seeing the town destroyed in the past, mainly in the 2006 war
between Israel and Hezbollah, but he says the bombs have caused much bigger
destruction this time.
He explained that all the infrastructure has been damaged, including the electrical grid
and the water supply system.
“Our house is still standing. But itʼs just by appearance. Itʼs all ruined”. he added
Town centres damaged
More than 200 attacks targeted Kfar Kila, damaging several supermarkets and service
shops in the central area of the town, according to Acled
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Blida town has also been hit at least 130 times since October, damaging several
buildings as well as a pharmacy, according to Acled.
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The damage has been focused on the central part of the town where the main services,
shops and facilities are located.
Dr Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research fellow for Middle East security at Rusi said Israel is
targeting towns in the border area because these are areas where it says Hezbollah is
deeply entrenched.
“Israel believes that they have sufficient documented evidence that there are a
network for fortifications and tunnels in the vicinity of homes.”
She said Israel is targeting this area to send a message to Hezbollah that they “should
not be there”, but believes Hezbollah would find it unthinkable to evacuate.
“The US has been trying to find a middle ground, such as getting Hezbollah to
withdraw four miles from the border. Hezbollah has rejected this.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the BBC it has carried out strikes against military
targets to “remove the threat posed by Hezbollah to Israel, its citizens, and their
homes”.
Israelʼs fire damage
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Across the border, buildings in northern Israel have also been destroyed by strikes
from the other side.
Israeli media has reported more than 1000 buildings have been damaged since
October. The IDF and the Israeli Ministry of Defence were contacted, but did not want
to comment.
But itʼs the destruction of land which has been significant here.
The BBC has used data supplied by Dr He Yin at Kent State University to examine the
amount of land damaged by the huge wildfires that have been sparked by the cross-
border attacks.
Dr Yin processed data from publicly available satellite images filmed in near-infrared
and shortwave infrared (which are outside the visible spectrum) to identify areas that
are suspected to have been burned.
This was checked against satellite photographs and local news reports.
Huge amounts of land have been burnt in both countries, but the BBC estimates that
Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights have been hit hardest, with around 55 sq
km (21 sq miles) of land affected, compared to 40 sq km for Lebanon.
Some recent estimates by Israelʼs Nature and Park Authority have put this figure as
high as 87 sq km.
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The pattern of damage shows that many of the areas burnt are set back from the
border, which reflects the use of large numbers of unguided weapons by Hezbollah.
These have been fired at civilian areas and military bases which arenʼt immediately
next to the frontier. If Israelʼs anti-missile Iron Dome system detects that missiles will
not land in populated areas, it does not intercept, leaving the missiles to land in the
open.
It results in extensive damage to agricultural land, farmland and forests. Dr Ozcelik
said thatʼs intentional on the part of Hezbollah.
“You could attribute the fires to the types of weapons that are being used but part of
that story is that Hezbollah seeks to create chaos and a level of insecurity among the
Israeli population which creates a pressure point on the Israeli government.”
The scale of evacuation is “unheard of in the Israeli context,” Dr Ozcelik added.
The scale of the damage is illustrated by images of the settlement of Katzrin in the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. A huge swathe of burnt land, larger than the
settlement itself, appeared after a barrage of rocket fire in early June.
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About 20 miles (30km) to the north east, lives Tzahi Gabay, a farmer and a member of
the local response team.
He is one of the few Israelis to remain in the border area. His wife and two children,
aged 5 and 7, fled their town of Kfar Yuval, which lies just metres from the frontier,
and have been living in a small hotel room for the past nine months. Mr Gabay sees
them only once a week.
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He has seen first-hand the fires that have been devastating huge areas of northern
Israel.
“Fearing the rocket attacks, people neglected the vegetation and it dried up during the
spring. Every UAV [drone], rocket or missile that was fired immediately ignited
enormous fires in the Galilee. The entire area was burning. We had to fight the flames,
to put out the fires, to prevent greater damage to our fields, to our businesses”, he
added.
Getty Images
The fires are not the only danger.
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His neighbours, Barak and Mira Ayalon, were killed in January. They were having
lunch in the kitchen when a missile blasted through their living-room wall.
Mr Gabay has known the family for years.
“We grew up together. Removing their bodies in that condition… People I knew well…
It wasnʼt easy,” he sighs.
While a small number of his townʼs residents have stayed to keep their fruit trees alive,
around 90% have evacuated, knowing theirs may never produce another harvest.
Hezbollah did not respond to a request for comment. But its leader Hassan Nasrallah
said on Wednesday that the Israeli “persistence in targeting civilians” would push the
groupʼs fighters to target new “settlements” with missiles and warned Israel that its
tanks would be destroyed if they crossed into Lebanon.
And in a televised address on 10 July, he reiterated a vow to suspend his organisationʼs
attacks if a ceasefire is reached between Israel and Hamas.
White phosphorus
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Most of the 40 sq km of land estimated by the BBC to have been affected by fire in
Lebanon is close to or adjacent to the security barrier between the two countries.
Lebanese Agriculture Minister Abbas Hajj Hassan told the BBC that 55 towns across
the border line were affected by the fires caused by Israel.
He accused Israel of using white phosphorous among other ammunition and of
wanting to render the area barren and abandoned.
White phosphorous is a chemical substance that ignites immediately on contact with
oxygen. It sticks to skin and clothing and can even burn through bone.
The international campaign group, Human Rights Watch, has verified the use of white
phosphorus over several populated areas in southern Lebanon, including al-Bustan.
It says Israelʼs use of white phosphorus is “unlawfully indiscriminate in populated
areas”.
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The IDF disputes this, saying the use of white phosphorus shells to create a
smokescreen “is lawful under international law”. It says these shells are not used in
densely populated areas “with certain exceptions”.
Concerns over escalation
According to the Acled data, the intensity of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah
has not reduced since 8 October, with even a slight increase in the number of attacks
between both sides in recent months.
Dr Ozcelik said there are concerns that any further escalation in fighting could trigger
an all-out war, which could even draw Iran into a direct confrontation with Israel in
defence of Hezbollah.
But, in a note of optimism, she said she believes both Israel and Hezbollah are trying to
avoid that eventuality.
“Both sides are being quite calibrated in their approach across the border to avoid a
misfire or a human error or a miscalculation.”
Additional reporting: Carine Torbey, Michael Shuval, Joya Berbery, Daniele Palumbo
Israel-Gaza war
Israel
Hezbollah
Lebanon
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Iran faces dilemma of restraint or
revenge for attacks on ally Hezbollah
2 days ago
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Jiyar Gol
World affairs correspondent, BBC World Service
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EPA
President Masoud Pezeshkian (R) and Revolutionary Guards commanders have not yet threatened to retaliate for Israeli
attacks on their ally, Hezbollah
Many hardline conservatives in Iran are growing uneasy about its lack of action as
Israel targets the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, their countryʼs closest and most
long-standing ally.
When President Masoud Pezeshkian addressed the UN General Assembly on Tuesday,
he criticised Israelʼs war in Gaza and warned that its attacks on Lebanon could not go
unanswered.
But Mr Pezeshkian, who was elected in July, adopted a more conciliatory tone than his
hard-line predecessors, avoiding rhetoric about annihilating the Islamic Republicʼs
arch-enemy.
“We seek peace for all and have no intention of conflict with any country,” he stated.
He also expressed his government's readiness to resume nuclear talks with Western
powers, saying: “We are ready to engage with participants of the 2015 nuclear deal.”
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2024/9/28 10:52


Other senior Iranian officials and commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps
(IRGC) have also appeared to be unusually restrained when expressing their intentions
to take revenge on Israel for its actions against their country and its key allies Hamas
and Hezbollah.
Bowen: Israel is gambling Hezbollah will crumple but it faces a well-armed, angry
enemy
One week on, how the Lebanon attacks have changed the Middle East
What is Hezbollah and why is Israel attacking Lebanon?
Iran has armed, funded and trained both armed groups, but Tehran's leaders rely on
Hezbollah to be a major deterrent preventing direct attacks on their country by Israel.
Iranian support has been critical to Hezbollahʼs transformation into Lebanonʼs most
powerful armed force and political actor since the IRGC helped found the group in the
1980s.
It is the main supplier of the weapons that Hezbollah can deploy against Israel,
particularly advanced missiles and drones, and the US has previously alleged that it
also provides as much as $700m in funds annually.
Last week, Mojtaba Amani, Iranʼs ambassador to Lebanon, was severely injured when
his pager exploded last week at the embassy in Beirut. Thousands more pagers and
walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members also blew up in two attacks that killed a
total of 39 people.
Iran blamed Israel, but it made no immediate public threats of retaliation.
In contrast, when Israel struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus in April, killing
eight high-ranking IRGC Quds Force commanders, Iran swiftly responded by
launching hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel.
Iran also vowed to retaliate after blaming Israel for the assassination of Hamas
political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in late July, although it has not announced
that it has taken any action yet.
Iran's dilemma over restraint or revenge for attacks on H...
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Reuters
Iranʼs ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani - seen here at an event in April commemorating the Iranian commanders
killed in an alleged Israeli air strike in Syria - was among thousands injured in last week's exploding pager attack
A former IRGC commander told the BBC that repeatedly threatening Israel without
following through was further damaging the forceʼs credibility among its supporters
inside Iran and its proxies abroad.
On Monday, President Pezeshkian told members of the US media in New York that
Israel was seeking to draw Iran into a war.
“Iran is ready to defuse tensions with Israel and lay down arms if Israel does the
same,” he insisted.
Some hardline conservatives close to Iranʼs Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
criticised the president for talking about defusing tensions with Israel, asserting that
he should recognize his position and avoid giving live interviews.
Mr Pezeshkian was due to hold a press conference in New York on Wednesday, but it
was cancelled. It was unclear if he was forced to cancel because of his comments.
In Iran, power lies in the hands of Ayatollah Khamenei and the IRGC. They are the
ones making the key strategic decisions, not the president.
It is notable that Ayatollah Khamenei also did not mention any plans for retaliation or
issue threats toward Israel, which is quite unusual for him, when he addressed
veterans on Wednesday.
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EPA
Missiles are currently on public display in Tehran for Iran's Defence Week
Barak Ravid, an Israeli journalist at the US news site Axios, reported on Tuesday that
two Israeli officials and Western diplomats had indicated that Hezbollah was urging
Iran to come to its aid by attacking Israel. The Israeli officials claimed that Iran had
told Hezbollah that “the timing isnʼt right”, according to Ravid.
Last week, the host of the Iranian internet TV program Maydan, which is known to
have ties to the IRGC, cited Iranian intelligence sources as claiming that Israel had also
“carried out a special operation last month, killing IRGC members and stealing
documents”.
He asserted that the Iranian press had been forbidden from reporting on the incident,
which allegedly happened inside in Iran, and that the authorities were attempting to
control the narrative.
In response, Tasnim News Agency, which also linked to the IRGC, denied the
allegations.
The Islamic Republic finds itself in a precarious situation.
It is concerned that attacking Israel could provoke a US military response, dragging
the country into a broader conflict.
With a crippled economy due to US sanctions and ongoing domestic unrest, a
potential US strike against the IRGC could further weaken its the regimeʼs security
apparatus, possibly emboldening the Iranian opponents to rise up once more.
However, if Iran refrains from direct intervening in Hezbollahʼs conflict with Israel, it
risks sending a signal to other allied militias in the region that, in times of crisis, the
Islamic Republic may prioritize its own survival and interests over theirs.
This could weaken Iranʼs influence and alliances across the region.
Israel
Hezbollah
Lebanon
Iran
Iran's dilemma over restraint or revenge for attacks on H...
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Bowen: Israel is gambling Hezbollah
will crumple but it faces a well-armed,
angry enemy
3 days ago
Saved
Jeremy Bowen
International Editor, BBC News
Reporting from
Jerusalem
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Israel has launched more than 1,000 air strikes on Lebanon over the past two days
Israelʼs leaders are jubilant about the progress of the offensive against Hezbollah that
started with the detonation of weaponised pagers and radios and moved on to intense
and deadly airstrikes.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant did not hold back his praise after Mondayʼs air strikes.
“Today was a masterpiece… This was the worst week Hezbollah has had since its
establishment, and the results speak for themselves.”
Gallant said airstrikes destroyed thousands of rockets that could have killed Israeli
citizens. In the process Lebanon says Israel killed more than 550 of its citizens,
including 50 children. That is almost half Lebanonʼs dead in a month of war between
Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
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Israel is gambling Hezbollah will crumple but it faces a ...
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Israel believes that a ferocious offensive will coerce Hezbollah into doing what it
wants, inflicting so much pain that its leader Hassan Nasrallah and his allies and
backers in Iran decide that the price of resistance is too high.
Israelʼs politicians and generals need a victory. After almost a year of war Gaza has
become a quagmire. Hamas fighters still emerge out of tunnels and ruins to kill and
wound Israeli soldiers and are still holding Israeli hostages.
Hamas caught Israel by surprise last October. The Israelis did not see Hamas as a
significant threat, with devastating consequences. Lebanon is different. The Israel
Defense Forces (IDF) and the Mossad spy agency have been planning the next war
against Hezbollah since the last war ended in a stalemate in 2006.
Israelʼs leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, believes the current offensive is
making big progress towards his declared objective of tipping the balance of power
away from Hezbollah.
He wants to stop Hezbollah firing rockets over the border into Israel. At the same time,
the Israeli military says the plan is to force Hezbollah back from the border and to
destroy military facilities that threaten Israel.
Another Gaza?
The last week in Lebanon brings back echoes of the last year of war in Gaza. Israel
issued warnings to civilians, as it did in Gaza, to move out of areas about to be
attacked. It blames Hezbollah, as it blames Hamas, for using civilians as human
shields.
Some critics as well as enemies of Israel said the warnings were too vague and did not
give enough time for families to evacuate. The laws of war demand that civilians be
protected, and forbid indiscriminate, disproportionate use of force.
Some of Hezbollah's attacks on Israel have hit civilian areas, breaking laws designed to
protect civilians. They have also targeted the Israeli military. Israel and key Western
allies, including the US and UK, classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation.
Israel insists it has a moral army that respects the rules. But much of the world has
condemned its conduct in Gaza. The ignition of a wider border war will deepen the gap
at the centre of a highly polarised argument.
• Live: Latest news on Israel and Hezbollah
• Explained: What is Hezbollah and why is Israel attacking Lebanon?
• Watch: Hezbollah rockets hit residential areas in Israel
Israel is gambling Hezbollah will crumple but it faces a ...
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Watch: Small explosion in Lebanon supermarket
Take the pager attack. Israel says it was aimed at Hezbollah operatives who had been
issued with the pagers. But Israel could not know where they would be when the
bombs inside the pagers were triggered, which was why civilians and children in
homes, shops and other public places were wounded and killed. That, some leading
lawyers say, proves that Israel was using deadly force without distinguishing between
combatants and civilians; a violation of the rules of war.
The fight between Israel and Hezbollah started in the 1980s. But this border war began
the day after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, when Hassan Nasrallah ordered his
men to begin a limited, but almost daily barrage over the border to support Hamas. It
tied up Israeli troops and forced around 60,000 people in border towns to leave their
homes.
Shadows of invasions past
A few voices in the Israeli media have compared the impact of the air strikes on
Hezbollah's capacity to wage war to Operation Focus, Israelʼs surprise attack on Egypt
in June 1967. It was a famous raid that destroyed the Egyptian air force when its
aircraft were lined up on the ground. Over the next six days Israel defeated Egypt,
Syria and Jordan. The victory created the shape of the current conflict as Israel
captured the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan
Heights.
It is not a good comparison. Lebanon, and war with Hezbollah, is different. Israel has
inflicted heavy blows. But so far it has not stopped Hezbollah's capacity or will to fire
into Israel.
Israelʼs earlier wars with Hezbollah were grinding, attritional and never produced a
decisive victory for either side. This one might go the same way, however satisfying
the last week of offensive action has been for Israel, its intelligence services and its
military.
0:22
Israel is gambling Hezbollah will crumple but it faces a ...
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Israelʼs offensive rests on an assumption - a gamble - that a point will come when
Hezbollah will crumple, retreat from the border and stop firing into Israel. Most
observers of Hezbollah believe it will not stop. Fighting Israel is the main reason why
Hezbollah exists.
That means Israel, just as reluctant to admit defeat, would have to escalate the war
further. If Hezbollah continued to make northern Israel too dangerous for Israeli
civilians to return home, Israel would have to decide whether to launch a ground
offensive, probably to capture a strip of land to act as a buffer zone.
Getty Images
An Israeli jet flies over northern Israel on Tuesday - the country's defence minister has called this week's air strikes on
Lebanon a "masterpiece"
Israel has invaded Lebanon before. In 1982 its forces swept up to Beirut to try to stop
Palestinian raids into Israel. They were forced into an ignominious retreat in the face
of fury at home and abroad, after Israeli troops held the perimeter as their Lebanese
Christian allies massacred Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps
in Beirut.
By the 1990s Israel still occupied a broad band of Lebanese land along the border.
Todayʼs Israeli generals were then young officers, who fought in endless skirmishes
and firefights against Hezbollah, which was growing stronger as it fought to drive
Israel out. Ehud Barak, then Israelʼs prime minister and a former chief of staff of the
IDF, withdrew from the so-called "security zone" in 2000. He decided that it did not
make Israel any safer and was costing Israel the lives of too many soldiers.
In 2006 an ill-judged raid by Hezbollah across the tense and highly militarised border
killed and captured Israeli soldiers. After the war ended Hassan Nasrallah said he
would not have allowed the raid had he realised what Israel would do in return. Ehud
Olmert, by then Israelʼs prime minister, went to war.
At first Israel hoped air power would stop rocket attacks into Israel. When it did not,
ground troops and tanks once again rolled back over the border. The war was a
disaster for Lebanese civilians. But on the last day of the war, Hezbollah was still
launching salvoes of rockets into Israel.
Israel is gambling Hezbollah will crumple but it faces a ...
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Wars present and yet to come
Israelʼs commanders know that entering Lebanon under fire would be much more
formidable military challenge than fighting Hamas in Gaza. Hezbollah has also been
making plans since the end of the 2006 war, and would be fighting on home ground, in
south Lebanon which has plenty of rugged, hilly terrain that suits guerrilla tactics.
Biden struggles to contain conflict as Israel and Hezbollah on the brink
One week on, how the Lebanon attacks have changed the Middle East
What is Hezbollah and why is Israel attacking Lebanon?
Israel has not been able to destroy all the tunnels Hamas dug through sand in Gaza. In
the borderlands of south Lebanon, Hezbollah has spent the last 18 years preparing
tunnels and positions in solid rock. It has a formidable arsenal, supplied by Iran.
Unlike Hamas in Gaza, it can be resupplied by land through Syria.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington DC,
estimates that Hezbollah has around 30,000 active fighters and up to 20,000 reserves,
mostly trained as mobile small units of light infantry. Many of its men have combat
experience fighting in support of the Assad regime in Syria.
Most estimates say that Hezbollah has something between 120,000 and 200,000
missiles and rockets, ranging from unguided weapons to longer-range weapons that
could hit Israelʼs cities.
Getty Images
Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel since last October and has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people
from northern Israeli towns such as Kiryat Shmona
Israel may be gambling that Hezbollah will not use all of them, fearful that the Israeli
air force will do to Lebanon what it did to Gaza, turning entire towns to rubble and
killing thousands of civilians. Iran might not want Hezbollah to use weapons it would
like to reserve as insurance against an Israeli attack on Iranʼs nuclear facilities. Thatʼs
another gamble. Hezbollah might decide to use more of its arsenal before Israel
destroys it.
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With the war continuing in Gaza, and rising levels of violence on the occupied West
Bank, Israel would also have to contemplate a third front if it invaded Lebanon. Its
soldiers are motivated, well trained and equipped, but the reserve units that provide
much of Israelʼs fighting power are already feeling the strain after a year of war.
A diplomatic dead end
Israelʼs allies, led by the United States, did not want Israel to escalate the war with
Hezbollah and do not want it to invade Lebanon. They insist that only diplomacy can
make the border safe enough for civilians to return to their homes on either side of it.
An American envoy has worked out an agreement, partly based on UN Security
resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 war.
But diplomats have their hands tied without a ceasefire in Gaza. Hasan Nasrallah has
said Hezbollah will stop attacking Israel only when the Gaza war stops. At the moment
neither Hamas nor the Israelis are prepared to make the necessary concessions that
would produce a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and a swap of Israeli hostages for
Palestinian prisoners.
As Israeli air strikes continue to pound Lebanon, civilians who were already struggling
to provide for their families in a broken economy face terrible pain and uncertainty.
Fear crosses front lines. Israelis know that Hezbollah could do them much worse
damage than they have in the last year.
Israel believes the time has come to be aggressive and audacious, to blast Hezbollah
away from its borders. But it faces an obdurate, well-armed and angry enemy. This is
the most dangerous crisis in the long year of war since Hamas attacked Israel and at
the moment nothing is stopping it spiralling towards something much worse.
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One week on, how the Lebanon attacks
have changed the Middle East
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David Aaronovitch
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The war in Gaza always had the capacity to spread. Near-daily rocket attacks in and
around northern Israel by Hezbollah, Hamas's Lebanese allies, and air strikes by
Israel have displaced tens of thousands of civilians on either side of the border.
Your Account
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But until recently, the smart money was on both Israel and Hezbollah avoiding full
escalation. That money isn't looking so smart today.
Last week's extraordinary targeting of thousands of Hezbollah operatives through
their pagers and walkie-talkies seems to have altered the calculus.
Israel is believed to have been behind this attack - so why might it have carried out this
operation, and why last week? What does it say about how modern wars are
conducted? And what can we expect to happen in the weeks to come - how likely is a
ground war between Israel and Hezbollah?
First of all, itʼs important to understand exactly what Hezbollah is and where it comes
from.
The group came into existence in the early 1980s after Israel occupied southern
Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war.
At first Hezbollah presented itself as a resistance group against Israel and the voice of
Lebanonʼs Shia community, says Lina Khatib, director of the Middle East Institute at
SOAS University of London.
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But when Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah kept its weapons in
violation of a UN resolution requiring it to disarm. It continued to present itself as a
necessary force for the defence of Lebanon and “became the country's most powerful
political actor”, says Prof Khatib.
Although it is represented in Lebanonʼs government, Hezbollahʼs real power lies
behind the scenes, she adds - as an armed group that many analysts say is more
powerful than the Lebanese army, it has the ability to intimidate its opponents.
“It is able to set the foreign policy agenda for Lebanon to a large extent, as well as
declare war, basically, on behalf of Lebanon,” says Prof Khatib.
Hezbollah is also aligned with Iran - the groupʼs “principal armourer”, according to
Shashank Joshi, The Economist's defence editor. “There isn't simply a sort of
immediate direct command, but they are very, very closely tied in aims and in
practices.”
One week on, how the Lebanon attacks have changed the Mid...
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The rubric that we're supposed to use when we discuss these attacks is that Israel is
believed to have carried them out because Israel has not confirmed that it did so - a
long-standing policy on the part of Israeli officials.
When operations take place in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, “they tend to put
their hands up but they donʼt when itʼs Lebanon or Iran”, says Ronen Bergman, an
Israeli investigative journalist with the New York Times.
However, the attacks are widely cited as having been carried out by Mossad, Israelʼs
foreign intelligence service.
Unlike other such agencies around the world, Mossadʼs role is not just restricted to
intelligence gathering, according to Bergman.
Mossad also sees it as its duty to “translate the intelligence it collects into what they
call kinetic or aggressive or physical operations”, he says, including “explosives,
sabotage, targeted killings”.
A week has now passed since the pager attacks. And the day after, the walkie-talkies
were targeted too. So what do we know about these attacks?
Getty Images
Hezbollah claims that Israel was involved in the production of the pagers, but Israel have not accepted responsibility
According to Joshi, it looks to have been a supply-chain attack in which Mossad set up
front companies that look to have manufactured real pagers for some time.
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And when it came to this consignment bound for Hezbollah, it seems that Mossad
placed explosives inside the devices that they were then subsequently able to remotely
trigger.
In 2018, Bergman says, a young intelligence officer found out that Hezbollah had
started using pagers and came up with the idea of Mossad infiltrating their supply
chain. Some 4,500 booby-trapped devices were then supplied to Hezbollah, Bergman
adds.
There are some accounts that suggest Mossad knew where these pagers were and who
was in possession of them before detonating them. However, Joshi is sceptical of these
claims.
He says, too, that “this was not some magical cyber-attack in which the batteries
spontaneously combusted by some clever bit of code as people may initially have
thought or suspected”.
CCTV footage of the pagers going off were broadcast around the world.
The images were shocking - and they also tell us a great deal about Hezbollah's
organisation and structure, says Prof Khatib.
Typically, the group operates with a high degree of secrecy, she says: “Not all its
members are known, sometimes even to their own families.”
What the attacks have done, then, is expose who paid members of Hezbollah actually
were. That information, she says, has already proved useful to Israel.
In one case, “one of the people who ended up in hospital was later visited by someone,
and that person as a visitor was later tracked by Israel, leading them to find out where
the leaders of Hezbollah were meeting on the Friday that came after the attack”, Prof
Khatib adds. Those commanders were later targeted by an Israeli strike, she adds.
To some the attacks will have looked like a new type of warfare. Joshi, however, is not
so sure. “Itʼs always been possible if you wanted to put explosives inside a phone, a
pager, inside a banana, if you feel like it. The point is to what end?”
He says the Americans had contemplated carrying out similar attacks in the past, but
had shied away because of the potential implications.
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Getty Images
Experts say the pagers and radios were likely rigged with explosives before they entered Hezbollahʼs possession
After all, everybody now knows that Israel is capable of such an operation and can
therefore take steps to prevent another one in future - taking apart devices and
checking them for explosives, for instance.
As a result, he says, “my suggestion is that we're not going to see many attacks like
this”.
The implication is that this was a one-off, use-it-or-lose-it situation - once you've
carried out an operation like this, you can't do so again.
For this reason, Bergman says there are divisions within Israelʼs hierarchy about
whether this was the right time to do it.
“The timing of the attack is interesting,” says Bergman. “There are a lot of people in the
defence establishment who are furious because they said this button was not
supposed to be pushed here and now.”
All this raises the question of what Israel was thinking. Previously, many had thought
that Israel was avoiding full-blown conflict with Hezbollah and didn't want war on
two fronts while it was fighting in Gaza. The attacks might indicate that this
calculation has changed.
But Bergman says it remains the case that most of the Israel Defence Forceʼs generals,
including its chief of staff, oppose a ground invasion of Lebanon - conscious from their
experience during the occupation in the 1980s and 90s that it could be a “death trap”.
He suggests that the aim was to force Hezbollahʼs secretary general Hassan Nasrallah
to agree to a ceasefire without Israel ending the war in Gaza.
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Nasrallah has promised that he will not end his solidarity with Hamas until Israel ends
its war in Gaza, says Bergman, while “Prime Minister Netanyahu, for his coalition
integrity, doesn't want to end the war with Hamas”.
The calculation, then, was that the pager and walkie-talkie attacks would shift the
balance, allowing the IDF to focus on Gaza. “Of course, the risk of this is that it will
lead to the other way - it will lead, instead of a ceasefire and a political solution, to an
all-out war,” says Bergman.
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Prof Khatib says it would be “completely foolish” of Israel to attempt a ground
invasion of southern Lebanon - Hezbollah is well-prepared, with long experience of
ground warfare.
But Joshi says it remains a risk. Recent air strikes against Hezbollah arms depots as
well as the attacks themselves on the groupʼs leadership are “all the kinds of things
you would need to be doing ahead of a major ground campaign inside Lebanon”.
That brings us to the question of whether Hezbollah's capacity has been so degraded
in recent weeks and its confidence so undermined that actually it isn't in a position to
fight an all-out war.
Joshi says that Hezbollah has taken a “battering”, having seen much of its leadership
wiped out. “However, I think it would be a grave mistake to think it doesn't have
considerable missile power at its disposal.”
The thousands of Hezbollah rockets aimed at Tel Aviv and Haifa and other Israeli
towns and cities represent a major reason why Israel might not want to engage in an
all-out war, as do the thousands of residents of northern Israel who have already been
evacuated from their homes because of the cross-border fighting.
“The people who have remained are the people who probably don't have the means to
flee,” says Prof Khatib. “But certainly things don't seem to be calming down anytime
soon.”
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What is Hezbollah and why is Israel
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Israeli air strikes against the armed group Hezbollah have killed hundreds of people
in Lebanon, in the deadliest escalation of cross-border attacks in decades.
Hezbollah has responded by firing hundreds of rockets into northern Israel, as fears
grow that fighting sparked by the war in Gaza could lead to an all-out regional conflict.
• Follow live updates on this story
What is Hezbollah and has it fought Israel
before?
Hezbollah is an influential Shia Muslim political party and armed group.
It has a significant presence in both the Lebanese parliament and government, and
controls the most powerful armed force in the country.
Hezbollah rose to prominence in the 1980s in opposition to Israel, whose forces had
occupied southern Lebanon during the country's 1975-1990 civil war.
It has received strong backing from Iran, both financially and militarily, for many
years. It is also a strong ally of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
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Hezbollah's armed wing has carried out deadly attacks on Israeli and US forces in
Lebanon.
When Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah took credit for
pushing them out and continues to oppose Israel's presence in disputed border areas.
In 2006, a full-blown war broke out between Hezbollah and Israel, triggered by a
deadly cross-border raid by Hezbollah.
Israeli troops invaded southern Lebanon to try to eliminate the threat from Hezbollah.
About 1,000 civilians were killed during the conflict but Hezbollah claimed victory
and has since increased its number of fighters and upgraded its weapons.
The group is designated as a terrorist organisation by Western states, Israel and Gulf
Arab states.
How much political support does Hezbollah
have?
Hezbollah has participated in Lebanon's national elections since 1992 and has become
a major political power.
What is Hezbollah and why is Israel attacking Lebanon?
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The group and its allies lost their majority in parliament in the 2022 election, but a
new government has not been formed since then and it continues to have ministers in
the caretaker administration.
Lebanon is deeply divided over Hezbollah. While the group enjoys substantial popular
support, many opponents accuse it of involvement in political corruption and oppose
its military capabilities, viewing them as a significant factor in the country's ongoing
conflicts.
As a powerful political entity, Hezbollah also operates schools, hospitals, cultural
institutions and charities across Lebanon.
• Iran faces dilemma of restraint or revenge for attacks on ally Hezbollah
• One week on, how the Lebanon attacks have changed the Middle East
• Damage, destruction and fear along the Israel-Lebanon border
How strong are Hezbollah's forces?
Hezbollah has thousands of fighters and a huge missile arsenal in southern Lebanon.
It is one of the most heavily-armed, non-state military forces in the world. It is funded
and equipped by Iran.
The organisation has claimed it has 100,000 fighters, although independent estimates
put the number between 20,000 and 50,000.
Many are well-trained and battle-hardened, and have fought in the Syrian civil war.
Hezbollah has an estimated 120,000-200,000 rockets and missiles, according to the
Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
Most of its arsenal is made up of small, unguided, surface-to-surface artillery rockets.
But it also thought to have anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles, as well as guided
missiles capable of striking deep inside Israel.
It has much more sophisticated weapons at its disposal than Hamas does in Gaza.
What is Hezbollah and why is Israel attacking Lebanon?
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• What is happening in Israel and Gaza, and what is Hamas?
• The Israel-Palestinian conflict
Who is Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah?
Hassan Nasrallah is a Shia cleric who has led Hezbollah since 1992.
He played a key role in turning it into a political, as a well as a military, force.
He has close links with Iran and its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
What is Hezbollah and why is Israel attacking Lebanon?
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Reuters
Hassan Nasrallah is a Shia cleric who has led Hezbollah since 1992
Nasrallah has not appeared in public for years, reportedly for fear of being
assassinated by Israel.
However, he remains revered by Hezbollah, and delivers televised speeches every
week.
• Hezbollah leader says exploding device attacks crossed 'all red lines'
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How has the conflict between Hezbollah and
Israel escalated?
Previously sporadic fighting escalated on 8 October 2023 - the day after the
unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen that triggered the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah fired at Israeli positions, in solidarity with the Palestinians.
The group has since launched more than 8,000 rockets at northern Israel and the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. It has also fired anti-tank missiles at armoured
vehicles and attacked military targets with explosive drones.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has retaliated with air strikes and tank and artillery
fire against Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.
More than 70,000 people have been displaced by the fighting in northern Israel, while
more than 110,000 have been displaced on the Lebanese side of the border.
Tensions soared after the killing of 12 children and young people in a rocket attack in
the Golan Heights on 27 July. Israel said Hezbollah carried out the attack, but the
group denied involvement.
On 30 July, the IDF announced that it had killed senior Hezbollah military
commander Fuad Shukr in an air strike in Beirut's southern suburbs.
The following day, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Iran's capital,
Tehran. Israel neither confirmed nor denied any involvement.
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On 25 August, the IDF said its jets had pre-emptively struck thousands of Hezbollah
rocket launchers, after identifying that the group was preparing an attack in
retaliation for the killing of Fuad Shukr.
Hezbollah said it still managed to launch hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel.
However, it did not target major cities in Israel and did not deploy its more
sophisticated weapons.
There was another significant escalation on 17 and 18 September, when 39 people
were killed and thousands wounded after pagers and walkie-talkies used by members
of Hezbollah exploded.
Hassan Nasrallah blamed Israel for the attacks and said they had "crossed all red
lines". Israel neither confirmed nor denied being behind the blasts.
Hezbollah suffered another setback on 20 September, when at least 16 members,
including top military commanders Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Wahbi, were killed in an
Israeli air strike in Beirut's southern suburbs. Those killed also included children and
other civilians.
Two days later, the group sought revenge for Aqil's death by firing longer-range
weapons deep inside Israel, sending thousands of Israelis to bomb shelters and
damaging homes near the city of Haifa.
Lebanon's health ministry said at least 613 people had been killed as of 20 September -
before the IDF carried out hundreds of air strikes as part of a new "offensive
operation". Most of those killed since October were believed to be Hezbollah fighters,
but at least 147 were civilians, according to the ministry.
In Israel, authorities say at least 49 people have been killed as a direct result of attacks.
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Who is Hezbollah leader Hassan
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4 hours ago
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David Gritten
BBC News
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Reuters
Hassan Nasrallah has been in charge of Hezbollah for three decades
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's militant Shia Islamist Hezbollah
movement, is one of the best known and most influential figures in the Middle East.
Nasrallah - who was reportedly the target of Friday's air strike on Beirut - has not been
seen in public for years because of fears of being assassinated by Israel.
A shadowy figure with close personal links to Iran, he played a key role in turning
Hezbollah into the political and military force it is today - and remains revered by the
group's supporters.
Under Nasrallah's leadership, Hezbollah has helped train fighters from the Palestinian
armed group Hamas, as well as militias in Iraq and Yemen, and obtained missiles and
rockets from Iran for use against Israel.
• What is Hezbollah and why is Israel attacking Lebanon?
• Iran faces dilemma of restraint or revenge for attacks on ally Hezbollah
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He steered Hezbollah's evolution from a militia founded to fight Israeli troops
occupying Lebanon into a military force stronger than the Lebanese army, a
powerbroker in Lebanese politics, a major provider of health, education and social
services, and a key part of its backer Iran's drive for regional supremacy.
Born in 1960, Hassan Nasrallah grew up in Beirut's eastern Bourj Hammoud
neighbourhood, where his father Abdul Karim ran a small greengrocers. He was the
eldest of nine children.
He joined the Amal movement, then a Shia militia, after Lebanon descended into civil
war in 1975. After a short spell in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf to attend a Shia seminary
he rejoined Amal in Lebanon before he and others split from the group in 1982, shortly
after Israel invaded Lebanon in response to attacks by Palestinian militants.
The new group, Islamic Amal, received considerable military and organisational
support from Iran's Revolutionary Guards based in the Bekaa Valley, and emerged as
the most prominent and effective of the Shia militias that would later form Hezbollah.
In 1985, Hezbollah officially announced its establishment by publishing an "open
letter" that identified the US and the Soviet Union as Islam's principal enemies and
called for the "obliteration" of Israel, which it said was occupying Muslim lands.
Nasrallah worked his way up through Hezbollah's ranks as the organisation grew. He
said that after serving as a fighter he became its director in Baalbek, then the whole
Bekaa region, followed by Beirut.
He became leader of Hezbollah in 1992 at the age of 32, after his predecessor Abbas al-
Musawi was assassinated in an Israeli helicopter strike.
One of his first actions was to retaliate to the killing of Musawi. He ordered rocket
attacks into northern Israel that killed a girl, an Israeli security officer at the Israeli
embassy in Turkey was killed by a car bomb and a suicide bomber struck the Israeli
embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 29 people.
Nasrallah also managed a low-intensity war with Israeli forces that ended with their
withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, though he suffered a personal loss when
his eldest son Hadi was killed in a firefight with Israeli troops.
Following the withdrawal Nasrallah proclaimed that Hezbollah had achieved the first
Arab victory against Israel. He also vowed that Hezbollah would not disarm, saying
that it considered that "all Lebanese territory must be restored", including the Shebaa
Farms area.
There was relative calm until 2006, when Hezbollah militants launched a cross-border
attack in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two others kidnapped, triggering
a massive Israeli response.
Israeli warplanes bombed Hezbollah strongholds in the South and in Beirut's southern
suburbs, while Hezbollah fired about 4,000 rockets at Israel. More than 1,125
Lebanese, most of them civilians, died during the 34-day conflict, as well as 119 Israeli
soldiers and 45 civilians.
Who is Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah?
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Nasrallah's home and offices were targeted by Israel warplanes, but he survived
unscathed.
• Live: Latest news on Israel and Hezbollah
• Explained: What is Hezbollah and why is Israel attacking Lebanon?
• Watch: Hezbollah rockets hit residential areas in Israel
• Analysis: Israel is gambling Hezbollah will crumple but it faces a well-armed, angry
enemy
In 2009, Nasrallah issued a new political manifesto that sought to highlight
Hezbollah's "political vision". It dropped the reference to an Islamic republic found in
the 1985 document, but maintained a tough line against Israel and the US and
reiterated that Hezbollah needed to keep its weapons despite a UN resolution banning
them in southern Lebanon.
"People evolve. The whole world changed over the past 24 years. Lebanon changed.
The world order changed," Nasrallah said.
Four years later, Nasrallah declared that Hezbollah was entering "a completely new
phase" of its existence by sending of fighters into Syria to help its Iran-backed ally,
President Bashar al-Assad, put down a rebellion. "It is our battle, and we are up to it,"
he said.
Lebanese Sunni leaders accused Hezbollah of dragging the country into Syria's war
and sectarian tensions worsened dramatically.
In 2019, a deep economic crisis in Lebanon triggered mass protests against a political
elite long accused of corruption, waste, mismanagement and negligence. Nasrallah
initially expressed sympathy with the calls for reforms, but his attitude changed as the
protesters began demanding for a complete overhaul of the political system.
On 8 October 2023 - the day after the unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas
gunmen that triggered the war in Gaza - previously sporadic fighting between
Hezbollah and Israel escalated.
Hezbollah fired at Israeli positions, in solidarity with the Palestinians.
In a speech in November, Nasrallah said the Hamas attack had been "100 percent
Palestinian in terms of both decision and execution" but that the firing between his
group and Israel was "very important and significant".
The group launched more than 8,000 rockets at northern Israel and the Israeli-
occupied Golan Heights. It also fired anti-tank missiles at armoured vehicles and
attacked military targets with explosive drones.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) retaliated with air strikes and tank and artillery fire
against Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.
Who is Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah?
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In his most recent speech, Nasrallah blamed Israel for detonating thousands of pagers
and radio handsets used by Hezbollah members, which killed 39 people and wounded
thousands more, and said it had "crossed all red lines". He acknowledged the group
had suffered an "unprecedented blow".
Shortly afterwards Israel dramatically escalated attacks on Hezbollah, launching
waves of bombing that killed nearly 800 people.
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2024/9/28 10:50