Israel on Saturday said that it has assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Nasrallah was killed in airstrikes targeting Hezbollah’s central headquarters in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Friday, said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a statement.
Nasrallah is the latest and the most high-profile terrorist leader to be assassinated in the nearly-yearlong conflict. Previously, Israel had killed Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, and Hezbollah military chief Faud Shukr along with a whole line-up of senior commanders.
While all Iran-backed groups in the Middle East, such as the Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis, are often dubbed as Iranian proxies, no group comes close to Hezbollah when it comes to being integrated with Iran. This means that Nasrallah’s assassination would be a much harder blow to Iran than former Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh’s killing a few months ago.
While Hamas, Houthis, and other groups in the Middle East part are backed by Iran under the banner of ‘Axis of Resistance’, they have independent origins and sociopolitical contexts — even if enmity to the United States and Israel is common to them. Hezbollah, however, has had an Iranian hand from the onset.
Source » firstpost