Israel dealt massive blow to Iran by taking out Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah

Daily News Article — Posted on September 30, 2024

NOTE:

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism by the US State Department.
Iranian leaders support Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen, among other terrorist organizations, with funding, weapons and training.

Following the murderous infiltration by Hamas terrorists from Gaza into Israel on October 7, 2023, Hezbollah terrorists started firing rockets into Israel from Lebanon and have done so for almost a year, with Israel then firing rockets targeting Hezbollah bases in Lebanon. Under Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah was planning a large scale attack when Israel first set off booby-trapped pagers carried by Hezbollah operatives, and then conducted target killings of leaders of the terrorist group, one of the most recent being the elimination of Nasrallah on Friday, September 27.

Among other attacks on terrorist groups, the IDF has eliminated in targeted strikes all of the top leadership of Hezbollah, as well as Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas, who was in Tehran, the capital of Iran for the inauguration of new President Masoud Pezeshkian in July.

In addition, after a drone launched by the Houthis from Yemen on July 19 struck Tel Aviv and killed an Israeli man, Israel retaliated by striking the main port under the control of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, destroying most of the port’s oil storage capacity. Also, following recent ballistic missile attacks on Israel by the Houthis, including three this month (one on Friday the Houthis said was targeting Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plane), the IDF attacked Houthi power plants and a port, which are used to import oil. “Through the targeted infrastructure and ports, the Houthi regime transfers Iranian weapons to the region, and supplies for military purposes, including oil,” the military says.”

(by Dana Kennedy and Olivia Land, NY Post) – Israel dealt a massive blow to Iran when it killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah Friday – but experts say the country is ready to absorb any likely reprisals in order to quell the looming threats from its neighbors.

Nasrallah, 64, was killed in an Israeli strike on Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut on Friday.

His death, which was officially confirmed by the terror group on Saturday, elicited an immediate wave of shock, celebration and condemnation throughout the Middle East and beyond.

“It was a very tough call, because we are going to get the repercussions,” a senior Israeli official told The Post of the decision to move on Nasrallah. “But we are playing the long game, because Israel has to exist in the long game. So that’s why we took this action.”

Nasrallah – who led Hezbollah as its sole commander since 1992 – was the “main architect of the noise of death” that Iran was building around Israel, with the ultimate goal of destroying the Jewish State, the official explained.

Israel is determined to avoid a ground war with Hezbollah, and in recent days leadership came to the conclusion that the only way to avoid that was to eliminate Nasrallah.

“He was at the center of the axis,” the insider said, noting that even after Israel destroyed more than half of Hezbollah’s stock of missiles and rockets over the last week or so, “it was clear he was not going to stop.”

Describing him as a “zealot,” the official said Nasrallah was behind building this ‘noose of death’ with infrastructure for a simultaneous ground invasion on many fronts, featuring tunnel networks, armaments hidden in schools and private homes.

Nasrallah and Hezbollah were backed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who on Saturday urged Muslims in the region “to stand by the people of Lebanon and the proud Hezbollah with whatever means they have and assist them in confronting the … wicked regime” of Israel.

Nasrallah’s death was a major blow for the Iranian regime, which uses Hezbollah, Hamas, and rebel forces in other parts of the Middle East to serve as the front line of its conflict with Israel.

Taking out Hezbollah’s leader could “be a pivot” in the fighting, the Israeli official told The Post.

While Iran can replace Nasrallah, some people are “so powerful, so persuasive, that they are irreplaceable,” he suggested.

“We do not seek a broader war. Iran has to consider what to do,” he said.

Experts agreed that the next phase of the conflict will depend on Iran’s response.

“It was a very impressive operation,” Doron Avital, an Israeli politician who served in the Knesset for Kadima between 2011 and 2013 and who was a commander during the 1982 Lebanon War, told The Post Saturday of the Beirut attacks.

“This is an important juncture and a key crossroads in the fight and it will be interesting to see what follows,” Avital said. “The next phase is figuring out how Iran will respond and what our strategy will be.”

“The Iranians may be thinking now that they’re not as strong as they thought they were. But they have allies – Russia and China,” he continued. “We (Israel) will also have to decide whether to go on land with ground troops or not. This is a very pivotal moment when everyone has to re-evaluate their position in the game.”

“Killing one leader is not a magic solution to the terror we are facing, but eliminating the leadership of Hezbollah is a big step,” Sarit Zehavi, founder and president of Alma Research and Education Center in northern Israel, agreed.

Zehavi spoke to The Post on Saturday in between running to emergency shelters as sirens warned of potential rockets fired at Israel from Lebanon.

“We shouldn’t stop now, however. If we really want to win we have to continue to take them all out. It’s clear that no diplomatic arrangement will help. We need to get rid of them all and all their strategic weapons,” Zehavi insisted.

Jonathan Elkhoury, a Lebanese Christian whose family had to flee to Israel when he was young, told The Post the news of Nasrallah’s killing “to me is one of the happiest days for the Lebanese people.”

“This is one of the most important and transformative days for the Middle East,” said Elkhoury, an independent expert on Lebanon and Israel policy and politics.

“Hezbollah didn’t just terrorize the Israelis, they terrorized the Lebanese as well. When Hezbollah took over Lebanon, they took by force huge territories in the east and the south. Lebanon stopped being for the Lebanese and began being just a holding point for the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

“I’m feeling really optimistic. This is an historic day for Lebanon to start folding down the Islamic Republic’s holding of Lebanon and the Lebanese people.”

Some, however, warned that killing Nasrallah will not be a straight path to victory for Israel. …

Published at nypost .com on September 28, 2024. Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission.

Background

How Israel eliminated Nasrallah:

Unbeknownst to Nasrallah, Israeli intelligence was well aware of the movements of Hezbollah’s leadership following years of hacking and surveillance work on the Lebanese terror group — which is one of the largest and best armed terror groups in the world.

Narrowing its targets, the Jewish state then began hacking into the terror group’s communication devices, with spies able to track down the exact movements of Hezbollah’s operatives — sometimes through their wives’ cell phones.

Israel’s spies also tracked Hezbollah leaders’ movements by hacking surveillance cameras in Lebanon, and even reading their cars’ odometers.

As a result, Israel learned that whenever the routines of the terror group deviated, an attack was imminent, Israeli officials told the FT.

That very thing occurred on Friday as Israel bombarded Beirut, with officials learning that Nasrallah was en route to his “command and control” bunker.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in New York for his speech at the United Nations when he green-lit the decision to drop Israel’s ideal weapon to take out Nasrallah.

The Jewish state had been planning the attack for months as it developed bombs outfitted with timed explosions that would dig through the earth, allowing the next bomb to reach further down, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Unlike the US, which has heavy bombers and massive 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs for destroying bunkers deep underground, the Israeli military has only fighter jets — limiting the size of ordnance warplanes can carry.

The Israeli bombardment successfully reached Nasrallah’s hideout 60 feet underground.

Netanyahu touted Nasrallah’s death as a “historic turning point” amid the ongoing escalation in conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that threatens all-out war in the region.

“Nasrallah was not just another terrorist, he was the terrorist,” Netanyahu said. “As long as Nasrallah was alive, he would have quickly rebuilt the capabilities we took from Hezbollah.”

(excerpted from a NY Post article by Ronny Reyes on Sept. 29)

PARTIAL LIST OF SOME OF THE AMERICANS MURDERED BY HEZBOLLAH from a 2012 Wall Street Journal article by Bret Stephens:

17 Americans killed in April 1983 at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut [Lebanon] by the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad Organization, later known as Hezbollah.
241 U.S. servicemen killed by Islamic Jihad at the Marine barracks in Beirut on Oct. 23, 1983.
Master Chief Robert Dean Stethem, beaten to death in June 1985 by a Hezbollah terrorist in Beirut aboard [hijacked] TWA flight 847.
William Francis Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, tortured to death by Hezbollah that same month (June 1985).
Marine Col. William Higgins, taken hostage in 1988 while serving with U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon and hanged by Hezbollah sometime later.
The 19 U.S. Air Force personnel killed in June 1996 in the Khobar Towers [Saudi Arabia] bombing, for which several members of Saudi Hezbollah were indicted in U.S. federal court.

Bret Stephens also wrote: “Sensible policy on Iran begins not with the question of how to avoid a war—that war was foisted on us in 1979—but how to win it. Anything less invites further terror and dishonors the memory of Iran’s many American victims.”