Netanyahu's Assassination of Nasrallah

Hello everybody!

‘On popular demand’, here a ‘quick and dirty’ set of answers to questions about latest developments between Israel and Lebanon.

***

During the evening of Friday, 27 September 2024, the Israeli Air-Space Force (IASF) flew an air strike against a complex of apartment buildings in the Dahiyeh District of southern Lebanon.

As far as can be assessed from official Israeli releases: the ‘Israeli intelligence’ tracked down a motorcade carrying the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. When this stopped, Nasrallah walked emerged from one of the cars and entered an apartment building. Based on intelligence that the Hezbollah has constructed an underground complex under the much of this area, the Israeli intelligence then gave its ‘go’ for the air strike: this was confirmed by Prime Minister Netanyahu (who was underway in New York at the time).

Boeing F-15I fighter-bombers of No. 69 Squadron IASF have released more than 80 GPS-homing bombs. Up to 16 of these were GBU-31 JDAMs, armed with BLU-109 ‘bunker-busting’ warheads.

F-15I of the IASF rolling for take-off while armed with two GBU-31s on underwing stations (each is weighting 907kg), and up to eight JDAMs or similar weapons calibre 250kg.

This is what a GBU-31 with BLU-109 warhead is looking like. Gauging by what can be seen on the video from which the still above was taken, the Israelis seem to have developed their own version of this weapon: this is retaining the warhead and the fin, but adding a new guidance section - probably with an electro-optical seensor - at the front.

By now it’s certain that at least four buildings (marked with red arrows on the photo below) were completely smashed: it’s possible that up to four additional buildings in between these four were also demolsihed.

Exact number of victims of this strike is still unclear, but between those confirmed as killed were Nasrallah and Brigadier-General Abbas Nilforoushan. The latter was the Deputy Commander IRGC-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), responsible for Lebanon.

A day later, the IASF flew a similar strike against another complex of buildings in the Choaffieh District of southern Beirut, killing Nasrallah’s preliminary successor, Hassan Khalil Yassin. Hezbollah confirmed Yassin’s death, but deined the Israeli report according to which its commander for south Lebanon, Ali Karaki, was killed…

***

What do I think about this, and what do I expect?

Up front, Netanyahu is after expanding his ‘war on Hamas’ to all of the Middle East, and can’t care less what might be a good enough reason to do so. He knows he is going to remain in power as long as this war goes on. Therefore, his aim is to continue the war as long as possible.

Much of his government understands itself as on a messianic mission of expanding Israel, and can’t care less about searching for good reasons to fight a corresponding war, too.

As for Hezbollah… well, I still clearly recall the day when, on 16 February 1992, the previous Secretary General of Hezbollah, Abbas al-Musawi, was assassinated by Israel. Back then there was no social media yet, but the mainstream media in Israel and ‘the West’ cheered that action almost as much as everybody is cheering Nasrallah’s death now. (Indeed, I’m sure not just one contemporary Israeli newspaper declared Musawi’s death for, ‘the end of the era of the conflict with Hezbollah’ or something of that kind.)

Eight years later, Israel withdrew from Lebanon – because it couldn’t defeat Hezbollah: to quite some degree thanks to Nasrallah, the organisation improved itself so much, it made the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon untenable.

On the other side, while over the last year Nasrallah was doing his best to ignore Netanyahu-ordered provocations and keep Hezbollah (and thus Lebanon) out of ‘war on Hamas’, I doubt any new Secretary General is going to follow in fashion. Indeed, I expect the ‘Hezbollah’ to undergo a major reform as next.

For the start, I expect the entire organisation to become de-facto assimilated by the IRGC (not only ‘controlled’ by it, like the last 20+ years). AFAIK, the most likely successor to Nasrallah is Hashem Safieddine, current Head of the Executive Council. He’s ‘almost literally in bed with the IRGC/IRGC-QF’: his son was married to the daughter of the late Commander IRGC-QF, Qassem Soleimani (assassinated on Trump’s order in Iraq, few years ago).

As next… while, sure, the Hezbollah and/or IRGC-QF have suffered a lot due to their sloppy internal security (see ‘Pager Massacre’), they’re no General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces: they have a ‘built-in redundancy’ in regards of their command system, and became as powerful as they are because they are experts in internal reforms based on such experiences.

And, contrary to Israel, just for example, both Hezbollah and the IRGC (and thus the IRGC-QF) are rooted in the local population: in Lebanon, they grew out of movements like Amal of the 1970s, originally created as a charity for the Shi’a population when this was massacred in thousands by contemporary Israeli ‘attacks on Palestinian terrorists’…

The end of one- and the beginning of a new era of the Hezbollah/IRGC-conglomerate: a still from the Iranian TV, showing what they said was Nasrallah’s body being lifted out of an underground facility. Reportedly, Nasrallah wasn’t killed by something like a ‘direct hit’, but by the blast/shock of the bomb detonating metres away: is certainly going to be another valuable experience for the Hezbollah/IRGC in construction of their future facilities.

Indeed, my assessment is that all of recent Israeli attacks and assassinations are playing straight into hands of a younger- and more extreme generation within their ranks: deaths of Nasrallah and his generation of leaders have removed most of the – aging – ‘political’ wing that became reluctant to confront Israel. Thus, I am expecting the Hezbollah/IRGC-QF conglomerate to rapidly re-organise/reform, significantly improve security and communications, and then to hit back in much more aggressive – and far more unpredictable – fashion than under Nasrallah.

With other words: Hezbollah/IRGC-QF’s rockets ‘raining` down on Haifa and Ramat David Air Base in northern Israel, is ‘only the beginning’.