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The Israel Defense Forces killed Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of Hezbollah — the Iran-backed armed group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon — in Friday’s strikes on Beirut.
Nasrallah, who avoided public appearances out of concern that he would be assassinated by Israel, remained in charge of Hezbollah for more than 32 years. He played a key role in building the group into the potent force it is today and was one of the most influential and best-known figures in the Middle East.
Son of a vegetable seller became the leader of Hezbollah.
Nasrallah, the eldest of nine children, was born in 1960 and grew up in Beirut’s eastern Bourj Hammoud neighbourhood, where impoverished Christian Armenians, Druse, Palestinians, and Shiites lived. His father, Abdul Karim, had a small vegetable stand.
After Lebanon descended into civil war in 1975, Nasrallah joined the Amal movement, then a Shia militia. However, in 1982, he and others split from the group (soon after Israel invaded Lebanon in response to attacks by Palestinian militants) and formed a new group called Islamic Amal, according to a report by the BBC.
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,” the report said.
In the following years, Nasrallah quickly worked his way up through Hezbollah’s ranks. He first served as a fighter, then became the group’s director in Baalbek (a city in Lebanon), and then the whole Bekaa region, followed by Beirut. At the age of 32, he was appointed as the leader of Hezbollah in 1992 after his predecessor Abbas al-Musawi was killed in an Israeli helicopter strike.
Nasrallah called for “the liberation of Jerusalem and referred to Israel as ‘the Zionist entity,’ maintaining that all Jewish immigrants should return to their countries of origin and that there should be one Palestine with equality for Muslims, Jews and Christians,” according to a report by The New York Times.
The Hezbollah chief was known to be less stern than other Shiite clerics. That was partly because of his slight lisp and a tendency to crack jokes, the NYT report said. He had never advocated for hard-line Islamic rules such as veils for women.
Nasrallah turned Hezbollah into a political and military force.
After taking the reins of Hezbollah, Nasrallah forged a close bond with Iran, which is a key backer of the group today. With significant financial and political assistance from Tehran, he turned the group into a formidable force and a major regional player.
Nasrallah successfully managed a low-intensity war against Israel which ultimately pushed the country to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon after an 18-year occupation in 2000. Subsequently, the Hezbollah leader claimed that this was the first Arab victory against Israel.
Hezbollah and Israel again got embroiled in a war in 2006 after the group kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. The combat lasted for 34 days and resulted in large-scale destruction and loss of life — more than 1,125 Lebanese, most of them civilians, died during the war, as well as 119 Israeli soldiers and 45 civilians. However, Hezbollah was lauded across the Arab world and began to take an active role in conflicts around the region.
Nasrallah also helped expand Hezbollah beyond the borders of Lebanon. The group was instrumental in protecting the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria when it was threatened by a popular uprising that started in 2011, according to The NYT report.
