Hassan Nasrallah, a martyr for Gaza
"I assure all of you, to the enemy, to the friend, to the whole world: you cannot eliminate Hezbollah, nor will you be able to eliminate the honourable resistance movements in Palestine."
The Israelis killed Hassan Nasrallah in their barbaric assault on Haret Hreik, Beirut, on Friday. The Israeli bombings reduced multiple buildings to rubble and likely killed hundreds, if not thousands more (the full tally isn’t known yet), but most importantly they got the man they wanted. Nasrallah had been leading the Lebanese resistance group since 1992 and was the most formidable and trusted leader in the Axis of Resistance. His pronouncements were consumed with rapt attention by both friends and enemies. He commanded respect.
During his stewardship of Hezbollah, Nasrallah made it into a formidable entity that has gone on to become a massive thorn in the Israeli flesh and its nefarious designs for West Asia. He achieved some stunning wins, the most significant of which was booting the Israelis out of southern Lebanon in 2000 and then handing the Zionists a stunning defeat in July 2006 — a defeat that troubles the genocidal Israelis so deeply that they have threatened Lebanon with a ground invasion for over a year, without making any excursions on the Lebanese side of the border for the fear of a repeat (and likely worse) of 2006.
While the Israelis could walk into Lebanon at will and went on to besiege Beirut in 1982, they have been kept firmly within the borders of northern occupied Palestine since 2006. This is one part of Nasrallah’s legacy.
When Hezbollah opened its support front for Gaza on October 8, Nasrallah would have known the perils of such a move, but he kept a laser focus on helping the Palestinian resistance in their fight against the Israeli genocide and never budged an inch from his stance. He kept reminding in all his televised addresses that Hezbollah will close down its support front the moment the Zionists ceased their barbarism in Gaza, but to no avail. Its resistance came at a huge cost for Hezbollah and its southern Lebanon stronghold. Over a million Lebanese civilians have now been displaced and Hezbollah has lost over 600 personnel, including several top commanders, and now the crown jewel Nasrallah himself.
Hezbollah is the first entity that threw its lot behind Gaza to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinians suffering a holocaust while the rest of the world has left them to die. Hezbollah had no obligation to do so. By all accounts, only the Hamas leadership inside Gaza knew of the October 7 plans, no one else had an inclination of what was brewing. Nasrallah’s support was only ever going to create problems for his men and nation. Nasrallah still plunged headlong into the battle. And Hezbollah still remains in the trenches in support of the Palestinians.
For its solidarity, Hezbollah came directly in the Israeli line of fire. Many of its top commanders were killed by Israel’s terror strikes throughout southern Lebanon. Those assassinations became more brazen over the last two weeks, starting with the pager attacks followed by the walkie-talkie attacks that Nasrallah said, were attempts to kills 5,000 Lebanese in a mere two minutes. Then its top commanders were picked off one after next. First, it was Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Wehbe who were both assassinated in a Beirut bombing. Then they killed the commander of the Hezbollah’s air force Mohammed Hussein Srour on September 26 before killing Nasrallah on Friday.
There’s a clear pattern of the Israelis working towards a strategy of picking off the top Hezbollah leadership to rattle the Lebanese resistance. Undoubtedly, the Zionists and their backers would have been emboldened by Iran’s lack of retaliation for the killing of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
However, if history is any indication, assassinations do not set the resistance back for long, if at all. Killing of top officials in the enemy ranks has been a Zionist policy that goes back years. Both the co-founders of Hamas — Sheikh Ahmad Yasin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi — were killed by the Zionist occupation. Top Al-Qassam leaders Adnan al-Ghoul and Yahya Ayyash both met the same fate. Fathi Shaqaqi, the founder of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, fell to Zionist bullets in Malta. Nasrallah took the Hezbollah Secretary General post after his predecessor Abbas al-Musawi was killed in 1992. According to one count, the Zionist state has carried out over 2,700 extrajudicial killings in its murderous history.
Yet, the resistance has only grown stronger across all the axes. In 1948, the Israelis established their illegitimate state without exerting much effort. They took the West Bank from Jordan, Gaza and the Sinai from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 in a mere six days. Despite growing way more stronger in the decades since those easy wins, the Israelis are yet to get a stronghold in Gaza fighting a ramshackle guerilla force after a year-long genocide. In such a scenario, the Israeli dream scenario of pushing Hezbollah behind the Litani River appears to be a pipe dream.
Undoubtedly, Nasrallah’s martyrdom leaves a massive hole in the resistance, for it would be hard for his successor to match up to his charisma and inspiring presence. However, there is no doubt that Hezbollah will recover from the temporary setback and become stronger in the coming months and years.
Hezbollah himself said in 2006: “I assure all of you, to the enemy, to the friend, to the whole world: you cannot eliminate Hezbollah, nor will you be able to eliminate the honourable resistance movements in Palestine. You will never be able to do so because the resistance is not a conventional army, and because the resistance is first and foremost, the people; a people who possess faith, willpower, confidence in victory, who love martyrdom, and who reject humiliation and disgrace. This is a people that no one can defeat.
“You may kill its men, women, children, and elderly. You may destroy their buildings and homes over their heads, but you cannot defeat them. And with us as well, I assure you, the resistance will not break. And the resistance will not be defeated.”
If the Zionist mouthpieces in the West are to be believed, Hezbollah has been the prime target of Israel since October 7. Certainly, getting rid of Hezbollah’s top leadership appears to be a step in that direction. The long sequence of assassinations will certainly impact Hezbollah’s decision making and cause disarray among its cadre. With its genocidal Western allies firmly wrapped around its greasy fingers, the Zionists are rapidly escalating tensions further in Lebanon, having imposed a military blockade and frenetically striking at will across multiple locations in the country.
This turn of events does not bode well for Lebanon, however, Hezbollah has kept firing ever deeper into Israel, hitting strategic military targets. Now a ground invasion, which seemed to be off the table seems imminent, and as Nasrallah said in his last televised address, his fighters will be eagerly waiting for a chance to take on the Zionist infiltrators, albeit now without his leadership but probably fiercer in their quest for revenge. This has all the makings of another war of attrition, just like in Gaza.
With the White House firmly backing Israeli terrorism in Palestine and now in Lebanon, and Iran the biggest fish on the Israeli fry list for the longest time, it is anybody’s guess what hell is going to get wrought in West Asia in the coming days.
Nearly in all their communiques, the leaders in the Axis of Resistance convey that their fight is for martyrdom or victory. Nasrallah has embraced martyrdom today, the wait for liberation is long — and may appear even more distant due to the events of the last two weeks — but it is as certain as tomorrow’s rising sun.
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I extend my deepest condolences to the people of Lebanon on the tragic loss of their leader Nasrrallah, and condemn the ongoing military actions of Israel, which are resulting in the indiscriminate deaths of numerous innocent civilians.
It is possible that Israel, particularly under the leadership of Netanyahu, may escalate tensions and engage in conflict with Iran. The Ayatollah, while hesitant to partake in such hostilities, will undoubtedly face a challenging decision. Despite this, there will inevitably be factions of resistance intent on seeking retribution. These actions will not merely consist of isolated attacks, but rather a significant event that will capture global attention. Regrettably, the Western powers are likely to manipulate the narrative and shift blame onto the Arab and Muslim communities for any ensuing provocations.
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