‘Hezbollah lives’
In the early hours of Saturday, posters appeared on Tehran’s highways depicting Nasrallah and proclaiming “Hezbollah lives” — seemingly in preparation for official Iranian mourning with the emphasis placed on how the group will live on.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a statement on Saturday insisting that “all the Resistance forces in the region support and stand alongside Hezbollah” and called on the Lebanese people to “confront and usurp” Israel.
“Israel clearly infiltrated Hezbollah at highly sensitive and consequential levels, killing senior command networks with airstrikes, paralysing its communication and coordination capacity, and grinding the organization down,” said Burcu Ozcelik, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute. “As the region faces the gravest threat yet to regional security in nearly a year of conflict, there are several unknowns, including how Hezbollah may respond.”
Nasrallah joined Hezbollah in 1982, the year it was formed by Iranian Revolutionary Guard members. During his 32-year leadership, he is credited with turning Hezbollah into a regional power in its own right.
“Hassan Nasrallah will no longer be able to terrorize the world,” the IDF said in another statement posted on X.
Israel maintained a heavy series of airstrikes against Hezbollah Saturday morning. Israeli leaders say their escalating airstrikes are being carried out to preempt escalation into a full-blown war, but observers fear it could have quite the opposite effect and is putting the region on course for a wider conflict.
