World

Hassan Nasrallah killed: Decapitated and in disarray, Hezbollah and Iran must now decide to fight or backdown

Published

1 year ago

September 28, 2024

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The leader of Hezbollah is dead.

This is a very big moment, not just in this conflict but for the future of the Middle East.

In 2006, the last Lebanon War, Israel tried and failed to kill him.

Last night, in a huge series of strikes on southern Beirut, they finally hit their target.

Over the past 18 years Nasrallah has grown Hezbollah in his image, expanding its forces, building its infrastructure and significantly expanding its arsenal.

He wasn’t just the leader of Hezbollah, he was a global figurehead of anti-Israel resistance.

With Iran’s help, Hezbollah became one of the best armed non-state militaries in the world.

It is now decapitated and in disarray.

During the past decades Israel has also been at work, steadily gathering intelligence on Nasrallah and Hezbollah, building a vast database of information, an effort which arguably distracted them from better understanding the intentions of Hamas.

The intelligence successes of the past days have helped restore Israel’s reputation after the stunning failures on October 7.

Iran and Hezbollah must choose

This is a pivotal moment.

Iran and Hezbollah must now decide how to respond: fight, or backdown.

The strike also killed Ali Karaqi, commander of Hezbollah’s southern front and labelled as the second most wanted by the IDF.

It is still unclear who else died in the strike, but given the location and the presence of top officials, it seems likely that other senior figures would have been eliminated too.

Nasrallah will be replaced.

The assassination of enemy leaders can prove to be a short-term victory because they are often succeeded by someone more formidable than before, as witnessed by the killing of the former Hezbollah leader Abbas al Moussawi in 1992.

He was succeeded by Nasrallah.

The working assumption is that the group will respond with barrages of missiles into Israel, probably targeting Tel Aviv.

But Hezbollah’s command structure has been severely degraded by Israel.

Nasrallah had become isolated as the IDF had steadily killed commanders over a fortnight of scything airstrikes on their compounds in Beirut and elsewhere.

It will probably take time to co-ordinate a response and it will probably be done with Iranian guidance.

Nasrallah might be dead, but Hezbollah isn’t

Hezbollah is badly wounded, not just as a paramilitary force but in the eyes of the Lebanese people, many of whom are angry their country is now facing another period of devastating violence.

This might be a moment for more moderate voices within Lebanon, including the national armed forces, to step in.

As the war escalated over recent weeks, noticeable divisions emerged between Tehran and Nasrallah.

He remained an important ally, however, a trusted advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, and this will come as a personal blow to him.

Having resisted the opportunity to get involved so far, Iran might decide the time has come to take the gloves off and deploy what is left of the thousands of missiles they’ve provided Hezbollah with.

Alternatively, after such a difficult ten days, Tehran might conclude that this round of fighting needs to end and pull back with its main proxy still in some shape to rebuild and fight another day.

With such momentum behind Israel, Iran will also be concerned about its own fate and that of its smaller proxies in Iraq and Syria.

Ultimately, the reason for Hezbollah’s existence – to act as insurance against an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities – hasn’t changed, but if Tehran calculates its proxies can no longer act as that shield it might try to accelerate its nuclear programme.

Could a ground invasion follow?

The Israeli government has choices of its own: order a ground invasion of southern Lebanon or continue with an air campaign that has delivered such dramatic successes.

There will be strong and compelling voices in Netanyahu’s cabinet urging him to take advantage of the situation and send troops in, but Hezbollah is not defeated, thousands of its soldiers remain and they are likely hiding in the vast tunnel network under the hills across the border.

Even a limited ground invasion risks large loss of life, on both sides, and the potential Israel will be lured into something more prolonged than it intended.

Nasrallah’s death might change the dynamic in Gaza too.

Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, has clung on and rejected ceasefire attempts in the hope that Hezbollah and Iran would go to war with Israel, dragging its enemy into a multi-front and unwinnable conflict.

That might still happen, but just as Nasrallah became isolated, so too is Sinwar.

The much trumpeted “unity of arenas” has failed to join up.

The Middle East might often look chaotic to outsiders, but there are unspoken rules generally acknowledged and followed by belligerents.

For years Hezbollah and Israel acted within the unwritten but understood parameters of a shadow war.

Then, eleven months ago on 8 October, Hezbollah attacked Israel out of solidarity with Hamas.

Nasrallah tied Lebanon’s fate to Hamas, insisting that Hezbollah would only stop when the fighting ended in Gaza.

That ceasefire never came.

The rules shifted as the crossfire escalated, but it remained broadly contained within boundaries understood by both sides.

Until two weeks ago, 17 September, when thousands of pagers started exploding across Beirut and Lebanon.

It is possible Nasrallah had concluded that Israel was war-weary, and he overestimated the domestic and international pressure Netanyahu was under to end the fighting.

He might have believed that Netanyahu had neither the will nor the support to open up another front.

He, like so many of us, maybe assumed US influence on Israel would prevail.

Those miscalculations cost him his life.

World

‘No one is here to help us’: Palestinians watch on as Israeli diggers tear down their homes in East Jerusalem

Published

4 hours ago

December 23, 2025

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'No one is here to help us': Palestinians watch on as Israeli diggers tear down their homes in East Jerusalem

A balcony of onlookers stare as three diggers gnaw at the four-storey building that was a fixture of their daily view.

The roads of Silwan’s Wadi Qaddom neighbourhood are blocked off by Israeli police as residents watch the demolition in the valley from every vantage point. The block of flats was home to around 100 of their neighbours – many of them are now homeless.

An elderly woman sits at the bus stop near the police checkpoint closest to the demolition site. As she walks back down the hill, she looks back at the destruction. Her cheeks are red with anger when she hails that God is their only protection.

“Where are the Arab countries? No one is here to help us,” she exclaims.

Of the 230 buildings demolished in East Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighbourhoods in 2025, the block of roughly 13 flats is considered to be the largest and took 12 hours to completely demolish.

The building was without a permit, like many in Silwan, and stood on land that was not licensed for residential use. The residents were challenging long-standing demolition orders and applying for licensing when diggers arrived at dawn.

The Jerusalem Municipality said the demolition of the building in Silwan was based on a 2014 court order, and that residents were granted extensions for the execution of the order and were offered various options in order to find a solution, but they declined to do so.

But an architect and urban planner from the Israeli NGO Bimkom (Planners for Planning Rights) – which is supporting the families in their bid to license the land of the building – says their time to act was cut short.

“They were told that the demolition order would be implemented, and then they would get another six months’ recourse to try to continue with their planning. Six months is not enough for these planning processes. They take a long time,” Sari Kornish tells us in front of the Jerusalem Municipality after meeting with the building residents’ lawyer there.

Are permits granted for Palestinians in East Jerusalem?

“Very, very few, and in recent years, since October 7, less and less,” says Sari.

“It has always been discrimination. It has always been not enough.”

Far-right minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir posted on X about the building’s demolition.

He said: “Proud to lead the policy of demolishing illegal buildings – not only in the Negev, this morning in East Jerusalem (Silwan neighbourhood) a building that was built illegally and 100 people lived in it – was demolished! Strengthens the police and the district commander.”

Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank is illegal under international law.

On Sunday, Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that the security cabinet approved 19 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Half a million Israeli settlers currently live in the West Bank, and over 230,000 live in East Jerusalem, where some are taking over homes instead of seizing land.

At least 500 Palestinians have lost their homes to lack-of-permit demolitions in East Jerusalem, and at least 1,000 people, including 460 children, are at risk of forced displacement from eviction cases filed against them in Israeli courts by settler organisations.

In the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Batn al Hawa in Silwan, Zuhair al Rajabbi looks out from his balcony at the homes of his neighbours.

The landscape is marked by demolition sites, and former homes of his neighbours are marked by Israeli flags. Settlers are busy renovating the rooftops to make their own.

“They have five children, and a grandmother was in one room. Downstairs, there was a family of seven children, with the wife and mother, in that one,” he says, pointing at the roof of his neighbours.

As we watch, a woman quietly mops the dirty water into a hole in the fence and onto the roof of the house next door.

“Look, they are even putting the dirty water on our neighbour’s roof,” Zuhair says with a sad bitterness.

“We used to live together like we live here at home – eating and drinking with them. It makes me sad when I see their home disappearing.”

World

Trump: US has to have Greenland

Published

7 hours ago

December 23, 2025

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Donald Trump has said the US “has to have” Greenland, claiming it needs the territory for national security.

It comes after the US president appointed Louisiana’s governor Jeff Landry as special envoy to Greenland, saying he would “lead the charge” in advocating the semi-autonomous part of Denmark to become part of the United States.

“Jeff understands how essential Greenland is to our national security,” Mr Trump said.

“We need Greenland for national security, not for minerals… If you take a look at Greenland, you look up and down the coast, you have Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.

“We need it for national security. We have to ‍have it… Greenland is a big deal.”

Why does Trump want Greenland?

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a joint statement that Greenland belongs to Greenlanders, stressing the US will not take it over.

“You cannot annex another country. Not even ‌with an argument about international security,” they said.

The country has already summoned the US ambassador in protest, with its foreign minister saying the move shows the US is still interested in the vast Danish territory.

Mr Trump has repeatedly called for the US to take over the mineral rich and strategically located Arctic island, since winning his second term, and has not ruled out using military force to achieve it.

Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said everyone – including the US – must show respect for Denmark’s territorial integrity.

How did we get here?

In March, US Vice President JD Vance visited a remote American military base in Greenland and accused Denmark – a NATO ally of the US – of underinvesting there.

The issue then gradually drifted out of the headlines but, in August, Danish officials again summoned the US ambassador – following a report that at least three people with connections to Mr Trump had carried out covert influence operations in Greenland.

The territory’s strategic position between Europe and North America makes it a key site for the US ballistic missile defence system, while its mineral wealth has heightened US interest in reducing reliance on Chinese exports.

Earlier this month, the Danish Defence Intelligence Service said in an annual report that the US was using its economic power to “assert its will” and threaten military force against friend and foe alike.

The report also highlighted the rising strategic importance of the Arctic to great power countries as “conflict between Russia and the West intensifies.

It went on to say that the growing security and strategic focus on the Arctic by the US would “further accelerate these developments”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia is worried about NATO’s activities in the Arctic and will respond by strengthening its military capability in the polar region.

World

Timing of Russian general’s assassination appears significant

Published

13 hours ago

December 22, 2025

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Timing of Russian general's assassination appears significant

A Russian general being blown up on his own doorstep isn’t a good look for Moscow, and it seems it’s becoming increasingly common.

The latest high-profile figure to be assassinated since Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine is Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov.

He was killed by a car bomb that detonated outside a residential complex, little more than 10 miles from the Kremlin.

Ukraine war latest: Kremlin denies Putin plans to invade European countries

He was a senior figure. Head of the operational training directorate of the general staff, Sarvarov prepared forces for future deployment, having previously served in Chechnya and Syria.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Moscow believes Kyiv may have been behind it. No wonder – they’ve carried out similar attacks many times before.

This time last year, Ukraine took credit for the assassination of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who Kyiv alleged had ordered chemical weapons to be used against its troops on the battlefield.

He was killed by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment block, which Vladimir Putin referred to as a “major blunder” by the security services.

But the attacks didn’t stop there.

In April, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik was killed after a car exploded in a town just outside Moscow. And two months ago another car bomb in Siberia killed a Russian commander accused of committing war crimes.

It’s unclear why Sarvarov was targeted – perhaps simply because his rank and apparent vulnerability.

The timing appears significant. It follows the latest peace talks between US and Russian officials in Miami over the weekend, where Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev met with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

In the past, Ukraine has used these kinds of attacks to embarrass Moscow and to bring the war closer to home for Russians.

This time could be Kyiv’s way of undermining Moscow’s narrative in the negotiations.

The Kremlin has been trying to persuade the White House that a Russian victory is inevitable, and that it’s futile to support Ukraine, in the hope of securing a more preferential settlement.

Ukraine has been trying to convince the Trump administration of the opposite – that it’s still full of fight – and taking out Russian generals in their own backyard is one way of doing that.

It shows Washington that the Kremlin is clearly not in total control.