An elderly man in dark robes and a white turban is urgently ushered to a secret location somewhere in Iran.
Amid the smoking ruins, deaths, and dismemberment caused by Israel’s air campaign in Lebanon, there can be no more vivid illustration of the wildfire danger now unleashed the leader of Hezbollah has been killed.
The robed cleric is Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. He has described Israel as a “deadly cancerous growth and a detriment to the region” that would “undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed”.
His regime has backed Hezbollah (the party of God) since the early 1980s and especially after Nasrallah became leader in 1992.
Now he’s in hiding, in his own country, while Lebanon’s authorities, which include Hezbollah, pick through the horror and mangled buildings that remain from the wave of Israeli air strikes.
After crippling Hezbollah’s communications system – although Israel is yet to publicly confirm it – with booby-trapped pagers, then walkie-talkies, Israel unleashed an air campaign along Lebanon’s border with Syria, the Beqaa Valley, southern Beirut and the south of the country.
It’s stated aim is to end the existential threat Hezbollah poses to the Jewish State, and the rocket attacks fired from across the border that have forced tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes along the border with Lebanon.
Israel has resisted all calls for a ceasefire. It’s clearly hoping to repeat the US-led campaign that rid the region of the so-called Islamic State, which focused on killing it’s ground troops but above all on eliminating it’s leadership.
Isis, however, had no state backing. Hezbollah has the support of Iran which has supplied it with weapons, money and training for decades.
Hezbollah also has a wider regional appeal, even among the Middle East’s Sunni Muslim nations and fought Israel in support of the Palestinians and the Iranian-backed Hamas in Gaza.
The more people killed, especially women and children by Israel in Gaza, the more many ordinary folk in the region have wanted to see a counter attack. Hezbollah took on Israel by launching missile attacks immediately after Israel’s assault while, in the view of many, the rest of the Arab world looked away.
Israel’s gamble is that it will so batter its enemies that it can secure a safe-ish future for a few years to come. Benjamin Netanyahu has never shown interest in long term strategic thinking but has focused on tactical survival.
US support, especially military support, has been unwavering – even as Israel’s government has lurched to the extreme right and now has cabinet ministers who openly advocate for the mass exodus of Palestinians from Gaza.
Netanyahu’s own Likud Party is opposed to a “two-state solution” with the Palestinians. It’s policy documents echo Hamas’ slogan “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” with a policy that says all territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean will fall under Israeli sovereignty.
Israel’s expansion of Jewish settlements into the occupied West Bank has been condemned as “apartheid” by Israeli human rights groups signaling to many, that the state isn’t interested in peace with its nearest neighbours. Now Israel risks a much wider war.
Jordan has had a peace agreement and diplomatic relations with Israel for decades, but warned that Netanyahu “must be stopped”. “It’s time to face the truth, and the truth is, unless Netanyahu is stopped, unless this government is stopped, war will encompass all of us,” Jordan’s Prime Minister Amman Safadi said at the UN this week.
Saudi Arabia had been moving rapidly towards “normalisation” last year until Hamas unleashed its atrocities on 7 October and Netanyahu’s government retaliated with a military campaign that has flattened most of the Gaza Strip.
Prime Faisal bin Farrah, foreign minister of the Kingdom, insisted at the UN that “guns are not going to solve anything”.
“We need to move to a peace in our region, and that peace is firmly rooted in addressing the Palestinian issue,” said the prince.
But now there will be no normalisation with Saudi Arabia. The Emirates and Bahrain will now be feeling they were naive to have opened relations with Israel in the “Abraham Accords” which are now deeply discordant with the feelings on the streets in Arab monarchies.
Before the Gaza war, Hezbollah’s regional standing was appalling. It is an acknowledged Shi’a proxy of Iran. It’s a state within the state of Lebanon. It sent 40,000 troops to fight alongside the murderous Assad regime in Syria.
It’s widely held responsible for the gigantic explosion of badly stored fertiliser that devastated Beirut in 2020. It’s designated as a “terrorist” organization by the US and the UK. It runs drugs, and other contraband, from South America. It’s a money-laundering mafia organization claiming divine legitimacy.
Israel has now rehabilitated Hezbollah’s reputation as the leading force in the “Azis of Resistance” and Nasrallah has now become a martyr.
Tehran’s leadership may retaliate by spreading its campaign against Israeli more widely. It’s already ordered its Hezbollah proxy in Iraq to start drone attacks and the Houthis in Yemen have been firing missiles at Israel for months.
After losing Nasrallah, Iran may unleash its swarm attacks in the air and at sea – lashing out at Israeli and probably the US. Hezbollah’s new leadership will be more violent and less calculating than the cleric Israel claims to have killed.
Netanyahu’s gamble is that in setting the Middle East ablaze, Israel will thrive in the ashes, it’s uncertain that will prove to be correct.
Sam Kiley has been covering the Middle East for 25 years.
