Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that his country had “settled scores” with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah killed by an Israeli strike in Lebanon, but experts say targeted assassinations of this kind are a double-edged sword. sharp.
Far from bringing respite to the Israelis, the assassination of Nasrallah seems to have had as its first consequence the massive missile attack launched Tuesday evening by the Islamic Republic of Iran against Israel to avenge its protégé in Lebanon, and an Iranian general killed with him. Israel has vowed to retaliate as the world watches helplessly as the Middle East descends deeper into chaos.
Hezbollah, a Lebanese Islamist movement created in 1982 with the help of Tehran in the wake of the Jewish state’s invasion of Lebanon, has been shaken by intense Israeli strikes in recent weeks which have decapitated its leadership, starting by its charismatic leader, killed Friday in a massive bombing on one of his strongholds in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Nasrallah’s predecessor, Abbas Moussaoui, was also killed by an Israeli raid on his convoy in Lebanon in February 1992. Nasrallah, promoted to secretary general of the “Party of God” after him at the age of 32, used this position to transform himself, in the words of Mr. Netanyahu, “not into one terrorist among others”, but to become “THE terrorist”.
In 2008, Imad Moughniyeh, then military leader of Hezbollah, was killed in a car bomb attack in Damascus, blamed on Israel. This attack had not “irremediably weakened Hezbollah’s military operations”, estimates David Wood, analyst for the International Crisis Group, “on the contrary”.
Established in 1948, the State of Israel used targeted assassinations against its enemies from the earliest years of its existence, but the practice gained strength after the hostage taking at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, where Eleven Israeli athletes were killed by a commando from the Palestinian organization Black September.
“Wrath of God”
In retaliation, Israel carried out an operation called “Wrath of God”, during which the leaders of Black September and leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) were killed in Italy, France and Cyprus.
The policy of targeted assassinations is often explained by a passage from the Talmud, one of the fundamental texts of rabbinic Judaism, cited on Saturday by Mr. Netanyahu: “Faced with the one who comes to kill you, stand up and kill first.”
It has grown over decades, with Israeli strikes targeting a number of members or leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as some blunders.
In 1997, an unsuccessful poisoning attempt, in Amman, of Khaled Mechaal, then leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, led to a deterioration of relations between Israel and Jordan, just a few years after the signing of a peace treaty. between the two countries.
Israel then found itself forced to release the spiritual leader of Hamas, Ahmad Yassine, who had been incarcerated for several years, in exchange for the release of the two Mossad agents (Israeli foreign secret services) arrested by Jordan after their failed operation.
The war started on October 7 by the bloody attack by Hamas against Israel from the Gaza Strip, gave rise to the assassination of leaders of organizations hostile to the Israeli state, notably that of Hamas, Ismaïl Haniyeh, killed in Tehran on July 31, and of Fouad Chokr, military leader of Hezbollah killed the day before in Beirut, before Nasrallah on September 27.
Israel claimed responsibility for the assassination of Chokr, and is the number one suspect for that of Haniyeh, but has not taken responsibility for it.
“Massive demolition”
In the eyes of John Hannah, of the American Jewish Institute for National Security, if Israel has let Hezbollah and Hamas accumulate threatening arsenals for years, the recent assassinations show that “prevention” has “returned in force in the Israel’s national security doctrine,” he said.
The country “is now engaged in a massive demolition of the military capabilities of Hamas and Hezbollah,” he underlines. And this despite the risk of growing tensions with the United States, Israel’s first ally and military supporter, which has engaged, to no avail, in a succession of mediations with a view to obtaining a ceasefire in Gaza. and in Lebanon.
The Israeli army launched a ground offensive on Monday in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah, which opened a front on October 8 against Israel, in support of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The objective announced by Israel is to “eliminate the threat” weighing on the north of the country and to allow the return of more than 60,000 Israelis displaced by Hezbollah rocket fire.
Yossi Melman, journalist covering military issues for the left-wing Israeli daily Haaretznevertheless believes that Nasrallah’s death will only change the situation if it is followed by serious diplomatic efforts to put an end to hostilities.
Otherwise, he told AFP, “Hezbollah, despite the hard blows it has suffered, will continue to target” northern Israel and, in the meantime, the displaced “will not return.”