TERRORISMHezbollah Leader Nasrallah Likely Killed in Israeli Air Strike

Editor’s note: Three hours after this story was placed in Friday’s issue of HSNW and sent to our subscribers, both the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and Hezollah announced that Nasrallah was killed in the Israeli air strike. He was not alone: more than fifteen of the most senior Hezbollah officials — those who had survivied Israel’s sustained assassination campaign in the last three weeks against the group’s leaders — and the deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard also perised in the attack.

Shortly 18:00 Friday, Israel time, advanced fighter jets of the Israel Air Force (IAF) directed dozens of heavy bunker-penetrating bombs, with a total explosive yield of more than 60 tons of explosives   — similar to the munitions the IAF used against Hamas tunnels in the Gaza Strip – into the basements of several high-rise buildings in the southern Beirut section of Da’aheha. The Da’aheh district is a sprawling Shi’ia neighborhood, and the deeply dug network of basements under the high-rises served as Hezbollah headquarters.

The attack, in which several of the high-rises collapsed, aimed to kill Hassan Nasralla, Hezbollah leader since 1992, and the more than twenty Hezbollah senior leaders with whom he was meeting.

Over the last three weeks, Israel has killed the entire top echelon of Hezbollah – more than a dozen top commanders – and followed the killing with a remote detonation of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah operatives. As a result, Hezbollah no longer relies on electronic gear for communication, requiring commanders to meet face-to-face.

The operation was approved a few hours earlier, following accurate intelligence on Nasrallah’s location in the Da’ahehdistrict, but the IAF was ready for such an operation for weeks. Israeli sources say that beginning about two weeks ago, the IAF was operating around-the-clock “hunting packages” all over Lebanon. The packages included armed fighter jets and armed drones loitering continuously in the air waiting for a window of opportunity to eliminate senior Hezbollah officials. Israeli sigint and humint alerted the loitering aircraft of such a window opened — even if only for a couple of minutes.

It is not unreasonable to assumed that this has also been the case with Nasrallah and his meeting with the remaining senior Hezbollah commanders. Over the years, Nasrallah usually stayed away from the operational side of Hezbollah, preferring to assume the role of the movement’s ideologue and public face. But over the past few weeks, as more and more Hezbollah senior commanders were killed by Israel, Nasrallah, inevitably, was drawn deeper into operational issues and military management of the terrorist organization.

Nasrallah’s bunker was not only dug deep underground, but reinforced with heavy concrete walls and ceiling. The IAF chose munitions which Israel was stocking for a potential attack on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.

Military experts note that the fact that Israel used deep-penetration bombs was evident from the pillar-shape plumes of fire emerging above the destroyed bunkers, and from the fact that buildings next to the targeted high-rises were not damaged.

The Lebanese health authorities say that about 300 people were killed in the Israeli attack, and that many more are still trapped under the collapsed high-rises.

It may take a few days to verify whether Nasrallah was killed or injured in the attack. Sixty tons of heavy bunker-busting bombs cause a lot of damage to their targets, and digging up the bodies of the dead and injured buried in the rubbles takes time. But the determination of Nasrallah’s fate also relies on signal and human intelligence.

Five hours after the attack, the IDF called on residents of three additional high-rises in the Da’aheh district to leave their apartments – and for other residents of the district to stay away from these three buildings – because Israel was going to destroy them next. The reason: The basements of these buildings were used to store hundreds of advanced antiship missiles which Israel wanted to destroy with the type of bombs used in the attack on Nasrallah.

Since the last war between Israel and Hezbollah, in 2006, Iran has equipped Hezbollah with about 160,000 missiles, rockets, and drones of various sizes and accuracy. The Israeli military said that its sustained attacks on this arsenal has reduced it by about 50 percent, and these attacks are continuing.