Who was Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader killed by Israel? : NPR

The Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, confirmed that its secretary normal, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed on Friday in Israeli airstrikes within the south of the capital Beirut.

In a press release launched by the group, it stated that Nasrallah “has joined his fellow martyrs.” The official Iranian information company reported on Saturday {that a} commander within the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was additionally killed alongside Nasrallah.

The Israeli army stated it had killed the 64-year-old chief of Hezbollah in what it known as a “focused strike” on the group’s headquarters on Friday within the southern Beirut neighborhood of Dahiyeh.

An extended-time chief of the Iran-backed militia, Nasrallah was born in 1960 to an impoverished household within the north of Lebanon. He was the eldest of 9 kids and went on to briefly examine theology in Iran in 1989.

Earlier than co-founding Hezbollah, Nasrallah discovered the ropes within the Amal motion, a Shiite political and paramilitary motion. He was chosen to be Hezbollah’s chief two days after its chief, Sayyed Abbas Musawi, was killed by the Israeli army in 1992.

Beneath Nasrallah’s management, Hezbollah turned one of the highly effective militias within the Center East, boasting a army drive stronger even than the Lebanese military. Funded by Iran, Hezbollah educated troops from Hamas. His group additionally gives social companies

Nasrallah led his group right into a struggle that pushed Israeli troops out of southern Lebanon in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation. His son, Hadi, was killed in preventing with the Israeli military in 1997 — the identical 12 months the U.S designated Hezbollah a terrorist group.

For a lot of the final twenty years, Nasrallah was solely ever seen on TV and by no means in public for worry of assassination makes an attempt.

However in Lebanon and throughout the area, Nasrallah has had many admirers. A 2020 report by a London-based assume tank, the Worldwide Institute of Strategic Research, estimated that Hezbollah had as much as 20,000 lively fighters. They see him as somebody who stood as much as Israeli and Western forces that attempt to weaken the Center East.