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DANIEL:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Daniel James. This is 7am.

The leader of Hezbollah has been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.

Hassan Nasrallah led the group for more than 30 years, building it into a powerful political force within Lebanon and the most heavily armed non-state militia in the world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly ordered the killing from his hotel room in New York, before his speech at the United Nations general assembly.

Joe Biden has called the killing a “measure of justice”, but Lebanon is entering three days of mourning at a time when more than half a million people are displaced there and airstrikes continue.

Today, Middle East correspondent for The Economist Gregg Carlstrom, on Hassan Nasrallah’s legacy and what his death means for Lebanon and for Israel.

It’s Monday, September 30.

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DANIEL:

Gregg, thank you for speaking with us. To start, can you tell me who Hassan Nasrallah was and what his impact was over the more than 30 years that he led Hezbollah?

GREGG:

Right. He was the leader of the organisation since 1992 and he’s someone who, in those years, turned into a larger than life figure not only in Lebanon but across the Middle East. Even though he was very rarely seen in public, he spent most of his time underground in bunkers for fear of being assassinated. But, someone who spoke regularly, was known for his charismatic speeches that were watched not only in Lebanon but across the Arab world.

Audio excerpt — Hassan Nasrallah:

Taunting Israel in Arabic.

GREGG:

And someone who in Lebanon, at least within his Shia constituency, was associated with the victory of 2000, when Israeli troops withdrew from South Lebanon, which they had been occupying for almost two decades. And then was credited with what many Lebanese saw as a victory in the 2006 war against Israel. So he had this mythos attached to him. Now, that started to turn sour over the past ten years when Hezbollah became a central part of propping up the Assad regime in Syria. Many, not just Lebanese but many Arabs, began to see it no longer fighting against Israel, which was, you know, a popular cause in parts of the Arab world, and instead fighting against other Arabs, fighting against Syria and starving and killing thousands of Syrians. That damaged the reputation of both Nasrallah personally and Hezbollah as an organisation. But still, someone who was, again, a larger than life figure across the region.

DANIEL:

How does Hezbollah actually fit into Lebanese society? What role does it play in the everyday existence of people of Lebanon?

GREGG:

It's sometimes described as a state within a state.

I think that is a fair way to describe it. It is the strongest military force in Lebanon. It is better equipped than the Lebanese army. There are parts of the country, particularly in the south near the border between Lebanon and Israel, where Hezbollah has effective security control. The Lebanese army does not have a meaningful presence in the south, or sometimes on the border between Lebanon and Syria as well. So an incredibly powerful military actor, maintains a network of social services across the country, schools, cultural institutions, a growing economic empire. It has its own network of supermarkets, for example, that often sell products imported from Iran, products that are cheaper than products you will find in other supermarkets in Lebanon. And then it's a political party as well that has MPs in the parliament, that sometimes has ministers in the cabinet and Hezbollah and its allies at the moment control a majority of the Lebanese parliament. So, not just a militia, but also a political party, a charitable organisation and, you know, I think it's fair to say the most influential actor in Lebanon.

DANIEL:

We know that Hezbollah are backed by Iran as part of the Axis of Resistance. But can you tell us what that actually means in practice?

GREGG:

This Axis of Resistance concept, which Nasrallah often promoted, the Iranians often promote, is the idea that there is this network of Iranian backed militias across the region that are committed to fighting Israel and fighting America. It includes Hezbollah. It includes Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories, various militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen. All of these groups receive varying levels of military and financial support from Iran. In the case of Hezbollah, it is very extensive financial and military support. The Iranians have spent tens of billions of dollars over the course of decades to try and build up Hezbollah's military capabilities, the arsenal of rockets and missiles that it has. Many of those were developed with Iranian knowhow because of Iranian training. Iran has sent kits to Lebanon, for example, to try and retrofit unguided missiles to turn them into precision guided missiles that can strike anywhere inside of Israel. It has provided training to Hezbollah commanders who then go back to Lebanon and train the rank and file. It has been intimately involved in the growth of Hezbollah as a militia since the organisation was founded back in the 1980s.

DANIEL:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said this assassination is proof, and I quote, “we can strike anywhere”, unquote. What does it say about Israel's current intelligence and military position that they've been able to kill several high level Hezbollah commanders, as well as their leader, in such quick succession?

GREGG:

It says they have been incredibly successful at penetrating Hezbollah and that has been the main focus of their intelligence gathering apparatus for almost two decades now, since the end of the 2006 war. The Israelis, during that war, tried to kill Nasrallah, they were unsuccessful. And they devoted a huge effort and a lot of resources in the subsequent years to develop sources inside of Lebanon who could give them information from inside of Hezbollah to, as we saw with the pager and walkie talkie attacks, setting up front companies that could penetrate Hezbollah supply chains, that could sabotage electronic devices that were being shipped to Lebanon for the group. It has worked very hard to infiltrate the organisation and it has been more successful, I think, than anyone anticipated that it would have been.

DANIEL:

Coming up after the break – how Hassan Nasrallah’s death will reshape the Middle East.

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DANIEL:

Gregg, Israel has killed Hassan Nasrallah. It’s a significant development in a conflict that has been ongoing since October 7. We have both seen Hezbollah and Israel launch missiles at each other for the past year but with both sides pulling back from major a escalation. So can you talk to me about why we have recently seen the conflict escalate? What’s changed?

GREGG:

Nasrallah made a gamble almost a year ago on October 8th, when he started firing rockets at northern Israel in solidarity with Gaza. He made a gamble that he could sustain an open ended conflict, but keep it a limited conflict. And for about nine months, he was successful at that. There was back and forth fire along the border. Hezbollah would fire short range rockets at northern Israel, which depopulated northern Israel. Israel retaliated with artillery and airstrikes in southern Lebanon, depopulated a part of southern Lebanon. But neither side, as you say, was willing to go further than that, to go beyond these informal rules of engagement. That started to change in July when Hezbollah fired a rocket, which we believe was aimed at a military base on the Golan Heights, in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights, but overshot its target, landed on a football pitch where children were playing. Killed 12 children. The Israeli government, at that point, decided that it wanted to change these informal rules of engagement. And so three days after that, it assassinated Fuad Shukr, who was the military commander of Hezbollah, the head of its military operations. He was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. The thinking at the time was that that might have been a one off. That might have been a single, you know, bit of retaliation for the strike that killed those children. But in fact, it was an opening salvo. And the Israelis went and prepared the plans that we've seen unfold over the past couple of weeks, this campaign of air strikes across the country, a further series of targeted assassinations. There were many, many people in the Israeli government, in the Israeli army who, for those nine months that the conflict was limited to the border, were very unhappy about that dynamic, who wanted Israel to escalate in order to try and change what had become a frozen conflict. And that rocket that killed those children on the football pitch, that was the sort of shift that they needed, the opportunity that they needed to change Israeli policy and pursue this much more escalatory path.

DANIEL:

October 7 was seen as a major security failure for Israel. That Hamas, which is a much weaker opponent than Hezbollah, was able to do that level of damage was a big shock to a lot of people in Israel. So how much of this assassination is about Israel reasserting a deterrence signal to its enemies?

GREGG:

Israel has wanted to do that for a year now. Yeah, I mean they, after October 7th, there were many, many people making unflattering comparisons to 1973, the Yom Kippur War, when Israel was completely taken by surprise by its Arab enemies who invaded and were able to, temporarily at least, make big gains against the Israeli army. October 7th was the biggest security failure to happen in Israel in 50 years. And it left Israeli generals, Israeli politicians, very eager to try and re-establish deterrence across the region. And arguably, they have done that over the past couple of weeks.

DANIEL:

What impact will this killing have on domestic politics in Israel and particularly on Benjamin Netanyahu's own standing?

GREGG:

It will help his political standing. Which, you know, would have been unthinkable almost a year ago after October 7th, to imagine that Netanyahu, who was at the time the most, I think, unpopular prime minister in Israeli history, to imagine that his fortunes could recover. But they are recovering. He, for months now, I think, has been desperate to show Israelis that something is going well on one of the fronts on which Israel is fighting. And he hasn't been able to make that case in Gaza. The war has ground into a stalemate there. Israel has not managed to achieve either of its stated goals, the total defeat of Hamas or the return of the 101 Israeli hostages who are still being held in Gaza, hasn't accomplished either of those things so far and the Israeli public, according to poll after poll, thinks that Israel is not winning the war in Gaza and is very pessimistic about the government's policy in Gaza. So, politically for Netanyahu, what's happened over the past couple of weeks is a chance to shift the focus somewhere else and to suddenly make it seem as if Israel is winning or Israel is at least making progress. It's achieving successes rather than security failures. And so I think when we start to see opinion polls over the next couple of weeks of, you know, how Israelis would vote if there was another election, I think those polls will show that this is probably helping Netanyahu politically.

DANIEL:

We have a situation now where there doesn't seem to be any end to the conflict in sight. We have over half a million people now displaced in Lebanon. We have tens of thousands dead in Gaza. Where does all this end in terms of there being a potential resolution to these ongoing conflicts?

GREGG:

No one has an answer for that yet, unfortunately. I mean, I think, Israelis are exuberant right now because of these operational successes, tactical successes in Lebanon over the past couple of weeks. But the strategic aim of all of this for Israel is to create conditions where 60,000 people feel safe going back to their homes in northern Israel on the border with Lebanon. And it's difficult to see how military action, even continued military action like we've seen over the past couple of weeks, is going to remove the threat of Hezbollah firing rockets or perhaps carrying out a ground attack on northern Lebanon. That is what sent 60,000 people fleeing to other parts of the country. And I'm not sure how the Israeli government creates an enduring change in that dynamic just through military force. Similarly in Gaza, Netanyahu is still not interested in a ceasefire. His coalition is not interested in a ceasefire. Some members of his coalition still harbour the dream that Israel will occupy Gaza forever. It will rebuild the settlements that were dismantled in 2005 and Netanyahu doesn't want to cross his coalition. And so, he is pursuing this sort of forever war in Gaza that looks like it will doom the remaining hostages who are there. In fairness, the leader of Hamas Yahya Sinwar also not interested in a cease fire. He thinks prolonged war is going to help him by damaging Israel's international standing, damaging Israel's internal cohesion. And Hezbollah in Lebanon, we should say, is still firing rockets at northern Israel, even though it has taken these enormous blows over the past couple of weeks that certainly look like it's losing the war and this war is not accomplishing anything for it. It continues to fire rockets. So all of the parties to this conflict are continuing with open ended conflict, even though they're not sure how that conflict is going to achieve any of their strategic aims in the long term.

DANIEL:

Gregg, thanks for your time.

GREGG:

Thank you.

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DANIEL:

Also in the news today...

Space X has sent a rocket to rescue two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams expected to be gone a week when they signed up for Boeing’s first astronaut flight but they were unable to return due to safety concerns.

When they finally do return in February, they will have spent more than eight months in space.

And,

There were almost 2,300 assaults at NSW schools in the year to June, new figures show.

The data released by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research points to a rise in intimidation, stalking and harassment incidents, with the rise in assaults spiking since the pandemic.

While there has been a sharp increase in reports of assault in the past decade, data shows use of drugs on school grounds has dropped.

I’m Daniel James, this is 7am. Thanks for listening.

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