Hassan Nasrallah

Hassan Nasrallah was the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, the Lebanese political and paramilitary organization.

Nasrallah was born on August 31, 1960, as the ninth of ten children to a family in Bourj Hammoud, a suburb in the eastern part of Beirut. Though his family was not particularly religious, Hassan became interested in theological studies and eventually moved to a Shi’a seminary in Bekaa Valley near Baalbek. He became a devoted follower of the Iraqi-born cleric Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr.

Following a period of further religious studies in Iraq, Nasrallah was forced to return to his native Lebanon when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein expelled thousands of Lebanese religious students from the country. Upon his return, Nasrallah became active at a school founded by Abbas al-Musawi, leader of the Lebanese Shi’i paramilitary group Amal, and he was later selected as a member of the central political office. 

Nasrallah joined Hezbollah, which was more radical and heavily influenced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the Iranian Islamic Revolution, after Israel invaded southern Lebanon in 1982, as part of Operation Peace for Galilee to drive back Palestinian terrorists from Israel’s borders. He quickly became noted for his fiery sermons and traveled twice to Iran to further his religious studies. He rose through the military ranks of Hezbollah in the late 1980s, fighting both Israeli forces and his former group, Amal.

In 1991, when al-Musawi became Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Nasrallah returned from Iran to Lebanon, and soon after Musawi’s assassination by the Israel Defense Forces, Nasrallah replaced his mentor as Hezbollah’s leader.

With Nasrallah at its helm, Hezbollah established a more extremist line against Israel and the U.S. and began acquiring advanced weaponry, including rockets with longer range, that would enable the organization to lead fiercer hostilities with Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. When Israel pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, Nasrallah and Hezbollah were widely credited in the Arab World as bringing to an end the Israeli occupation, a belief that helped the organization spread its virulently anti-Israel sentiments across a much wider spectrum.

In 2004, Nasrallah played a key role in negotiating a prisoner exchange with Israel in which hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners were freed by Israel in exchange for the bodies of three IDF soldiers missing since October 2000 and one Israeli businessman abducted that same month.

In the summer of 2006, Nasrallah oversaw an operation to abduct IDF soldiers on the Israel-Lebanon border, an attack that directly precipitated the Second Lebanon War. During the conflict, Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, striking as far south as Haifa, though Nasrallah came under intense criticism from Arab regimes - including Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia - who warned of the risk of "the region being dragged into adventurism that does not serve Arab interests" because of Hezbollah’s “unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts.”

Despite criticism, Nasrallah emerged from the war with renewed prestige, as Hezbollah was allegedly able to fight the Israeli Defense Forces to a standstill—a feat that no other Arab militia had accomplished. This bolstered his status in the Arab world and solidified Hezbollah’s political influence in Lebanon.

Nasrallah remained hidden from the public since the Second Lebanon War except for periodic speeches for fear of Israeli assassination attempts.

In 2012, Nasrallah sent Hezbollah fighters to Syria to support the Assad regime, a move that polarized Lebanese society and marked his prioritization of Shi’ite sectarian interests over national unity.

Following the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent counterattack in Gaza, Hezbollah began daily bombardment of northern Israel in support of the Palestinians. After being forced to evacuate some 60,000 residents of towns near the border with Lebanon, Israel returned fire. After more than ten months of rocket and drone barrages, Israel launched waves of airstrikes to eliminate weapons caches, rocket launchers, and Hezbollah commanders.

On September 27, 2024, the Israeli air force dropped over 80 bombs on Hezbollah’s headquarters in the Dahieh neighborhood of Beirut, killing Nasrallah and several other senior commanders below a residential building. 

Sources: Liz Sly, “Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah leader and force in Middle East, dies at 64,” Washington Post, (September 28, 2024).
William L. Ochsenwald, Paul Kingston, “Hassan Nasrallah,” Encylopedia Britannica, (September 30, 2024).
Wikipedia.
Israel Defense Forces.

Photo: Khamenei.ir, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.