Nasrallah’s elimination is a direct blow to Iran, and a revival of Israeli deterrence
Deadly strike culminates a relentless IDF assault on Iran’s strategic asset Hezbollah. Israel believes it will hit back, but Khamenei faces a critical dilemma
Israel did not wait for Hezbollah’s announcement, and officially declared on Saturday that it had killed the organization’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in the massive airstrike it conducted Friday evening on the terrorist organization’s underground headquarters in Beirut.
Nasrallah is not just another senior figure being eliminated; his expedited departure marks a watershed moment in the Middle East.
His targeted killing was approved and carried out once the Israeli leadership assessed that it had dealt a significant blow to Hezbollah’s military capabilities in recent days and weeks and that the threat to Israel’s home front — while still potentially potent — had diminished significantly.
The effort to further reduce that threat is also why, immediately after the operation Friday, Israel targeted Hezbollah’s entire coastal missile array.
IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari announced Friday night that Israel intended to carry out those further strikes, and warned residents of three complexes in the Dahiyeh district of Beirut to evacuate immediately. That unusual warning reflected the urgency.
Although it wasn’t explicitly stated, Israel feared that Hezbollah would attempt a dramatic retaliation using its coastal missile array, which had not yet been utilized in the past year and included dozens of missiles stored beneath densely populated high-rise buildings.
Hezbollah’s potential targets were diverse, from ships to gas platforms. As of Saturday morning, the assessment was that the majority of the coastal missile array has been neutralized, though a residual capability remains that could still threaten Israel’s assets in the Mediterranean.
Israel’s official announcement of Nassrallah’s death caused considerable embarrassment in Lebanon and Iran. On Friday, Tehran’s state media had limited itself to a dry report of the bombings.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was, at that point, the only senior official to issue an official statement, which included veiled threats: “It is now clear that Israel is our greatest enemy, and Iran will stand by Lebanon.”
The president’s choice of words was deliberate, making sure to refer to Lebanon and not just Hezbollah, as if this were an Israeli attack on the Lebanese state.
According to a New York Times report Friday night, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei convened at his residence an emergency meeting of the Supreme National Security Council, though Iranian journalists close to the Revolutionary Guards denied this.
Only Saturday, at midday, did the ayatollah break his silence in a written statement, declaring: “The Zionist criminals should know that they are too insignificant to cause any significant damage to Hezbollah. The region’s fate will be determined by the forces of resistance.”
The statement was less restrained than the earlier state-mandated tone, but it still did not constitute a direct threat against Israel. In this case, rhetorical restraint may signify not strength but fear.
Iran is undoubtedly at a critical decision point. The elimination of Nasrallah is a direct blow to the regime, underlining the drastic degrading of one of its key strategic assets, built for the day its nuclear facilities are attacked.
The regime’s dilemma is complex.
First, there is still a massive US military presence in the region, entirely focused on Iran. Second, the intelligence and operational penetration that Israel has demonstrated in Lebanon over the past ten days profoundly worries Tehran, especially in the wake of the attack in April — attributed to Israel — on the radar systems that protect Iran’s nuclear sites.
The working assumption in Israel is that Iran will respond to Nasrallah’s assassination, although it’s unclear if this will happen immediately.
In the meantime, Israel has decided to continue its intensive strikes in Lebanon to take advantage of Hezbollah’s chaotic condition, while turning its intelligence spotlight on Iran.
The confirmation by Iran on Saturday afternoon that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan was also killed in the Israeli strikes on Beirut will make retaliation more likely.
After the assassination of his predecessor Mohammad Reza Zahedi in Damascus in early April, Iran responded with a drone and missile attack on April 14 – its first direct attack on Israel carried out from Iranian soil (which in turn prompted the Israeli strike on the radar system). But back then, Hezbollah was fully functional under Nasrallah, who knew how to manage the organization both militarily and politically.
Now, with significant Iranian assets out of the picture, Tehran’s calculations have fundamentally changed.
The question is whether it will stick to the patience that has characterized its responses since April — including after the assassination it blamed on Israel of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31– or deviate in an attempt to weaken Israel’s deterrence. After years of accelerated erosion, that deterrence has been renewed in the course of this month, and most especially on Friday evening.
Translated and edited from the original Hebrew on ToI’s sister site Zman Yisrael.
