THIS is an extremely dangerous moment for the Middle East, and indeed the international community.

On Friday, a massive Israeli bombing raid targeting Beirut resulted in the killing of Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of the Lebanese pro-Iran armed group Hezbollah. The outfit confirmed the death of their leader on Saturday, and considering Nasrallah’s influence in Lebanese politics, regional geopolitics, and Hezbollah’s role as the vanguard of Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’, this assassination is likely to cause major shockwaves across the Middle East.

Hezbollah had been trading fire with Israel since Oct 8, 2023, after Hamas launched its armed incursion inside the Zionist state. Over the past few weeks, Israel has stepped up its attacks inside Lebanon, launching a savage bombing campaign on Monday which has resulted in hundreds of Lebanese fatalities and uprooted tens of thousands of people. Israel had also been targeting many key Hezbollah commanders over the past few months. Nasrallah’s murder is the most devastating blow to the movement. But while Tel Aviv may have won a tactical victory with the assassination, it has set the stage for a spiral of violence that will be very difficult to control.

It is obvious that Israel does not learn from history. Hassan Nasrallah’s predecessor Abbas Musawi was also assassinated by Israel in 1992, along with his wife and child. In the following decades, Nasrallah transformed Hezbollah — which was amongst the numerous confessional militias that had emerged from the chaos of the Lebanese civil war — into one of the strongest armed non-state actors in the region, which, incidentally, helped end the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.

Similarly, Hamas’s founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin — a wheelchair-bound cleric — was assassinated by Israel in 2004. His group is today a major political and armed force in the occupied Palestinian territories. The fact is that Israel’s policy of murder and subterfuge has been an abject failure, as the groups it has targeted have vowed to hit back stronger, and in many instances have succeeded in their pledges.

For now, Hezbollah is dazed, but remains defiant. In a statement, it has vowed to continue “confronting the enemy”. Moreover, the Iranian supreme leader has promised to stand by Lebanon and Hezbollah. From here, the region enters extremely volatile territory.

Israel’s blatant disregard for all human values as manifested by its genocidal campaign in Gaza, and its reckless arrogance as demonstrated by the assassinations of Nasrallah and earlier Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran indicate that it very much wants a confrontation with Iran and its allies in the region. And it is doing all it can to pull the US — its greatest, most unflinching patron — into the vortex. Israel’s bloodlust has, therefore, brought the world to the brink of a massive conflagration.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2024