Hassan Nasrallah: Vegetable vendor’s son who became Israel’s mortal enemy

It was a 16-year-old intelligent and religiously-inclined boy who caught the eyes of Abbas al-Musawi, who would go on to lead Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based organisation formed to fight Israel. That boy, Hassan Nasrallah, would form deep bonds with Musawi, and take over the reins of Hezbollah in 1992 after his mentor was killed in a helicopter attack.
Israeli military agencies hadn’t realised that Nasrallah, then just 32, would transform Hezbollah into a far more powerful and deadly organisation than Musawi had even dreamt of. Under him, Hezbollah not only got stronger, but also became part of the government in Lebanon.
Nasrallah, one of the most powerful players in the Middle East, had been living in hiding since the 2006 war with Israel. The world saw the powerful orator mostly on giant screens delivering speeches. It was on September 19 that he delivered the latest speech, calling the pager explosions in Lebanon as Israel’s declaration of war.
Other than that, Nasrallah was only seen in photos with leaders of the ‘Axis of Resistance’ propped up by Shia Iran.
In a 2014 interview with a Lebanese newspaper, Nasrallah junked as “Israeli rumours” that he had to stay isolated in a bunker. Speaking to Al-Akhbar, he said though the security measures were necessary, they didn’t disconnect him from his allies.

Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon’s militant Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah, speaks during a ceremony on the eve of the tenth day of the mourning period of Muharram, which marks the day of Ashura, in a southern suburb of the capital Beirut on October 11, 2016. (Photo: AFP)

That cover of secrecy was needed for one of Israel’s biggest enemies to stay alive all these decades. In a body blow to Hezbollah, Israel has recently eliminated most of its top-rung leadership.
However, Nasrallah was like a phantom, lurking in the shadows on whom not even death could cast an eye.
That has changed now, with Israel targeting Nasrallah by bombing Hezbollah’s central headquarters in Beirut on Friday night. Hours later, Israel’s military said the powerful commander, reportedly in a bunker in the headquarters when it came under attack, had been eliminated.
Skimming through reports and interviews, it is possible to piece together the jigsaw puzzle called Nasrallah.
Being the Hezbollah chief wasn’t Nasrallah’s only identity. He was also known as Abu Hadi or Father of Hadi, after his eldest son who died fighting Israeli soldiers in 1997, according to The New York Post. Hadi was all of 18 when he was killed in a firefight.
Nasrallah was born in 1960 in an impoverished neighbourhood of Beirut with Christian Armenians, Druse and Palestinians. He was one of nine siblings, and his father had a small vegetable stall.
He married Fatima Yassin and they have four surviving children.
“He studied religious sciences for three years in the seminaries of Najaf, Iraq, before being expelled in 1978 when Saddam Hussein cracked down on Shia activists,” according to a report by The Middle East News Agency (Mena). It was in Iraq that he met his political mentor Abbas al-Musawi.
Hezbollah was formed in June 1982 in response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon over attacks by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).
But before he took over the reins of Hezbollah from Musawi, Nasrallah gained experience in the ranks of the Lebanese Resistance Regiments (Amal Movement), according to Mena.
Since taking over Hezbollah in 1992, Nasrallah became the face and driving force behind the organisation.
Despite its Shia Islamist roots, Hezbollah formed alliances with individuals and groups from other sects, reflecting its pragmatic approach to Lebanese politics.
Nasrallah himself wasn’t a conservative Islamist leader. He never promoted the Islamic veil for women.
He called for the “liberation” of Jerusalem, and referred to Israel as “Zionist entity”, advocating that all Israelis should return to their countries of origin, and that “there should be one Palestine with equality for Muslims, Jews and Christians”, according to a New York Times report.
A shrewd political and military leader, Nasrallah extended the influence of Hezbollah beyond Lebanon’s borders. Outside the country, Hezbollah acts like a militia.
Hezbollah helped quell the uprising in Syria in 2011 that threatened the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Nasrallah, with Iran’s help, also defeated leadership challenges within Hezbollah.
In 1997, former Hezbollah leader Sheikh Subhi Tufayli led an uprising against Nasrallah, but his men disarmed the rebels, according to YNet News.
It is the wars with Israel that cemented Nasrallah’s standing in the Arab world.
Under his lead, Hezbollah played a key role in ending Israel’s 30-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.
He became a hero in Middle Eastern countries after declaring “divine victory” against Israel after 34 days of war in 2006.
After the war, Nasrallah reached a small town, Bint Jbeil, close to the Israeli border and delivered one of the most prominent speeches of his career.
“Nasrallah claimed that Israel was ‘weak as spider’s web’ despite its nuclear weapons,” he told the Arab world and the “oppressed people of Palestine”, according to a Guardian report.
The 2006 victory won Nasrallah the respect of many ordinary Arabs who had grown up watching Israel defeat their armies, according to a Reuters report.
However, as the challenger to Sunni powerhouses like Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah and its benefactor Iran have also made a lot of enemies in the Middle East.
For decades, Nasrallah worked like a phantom, checking the Sunni powers, and bleeding Israel.
Israel has had to face a barrage of rockets fired by Hezbollah, forcing it to move its citizens out of North Israel. Since the Hamas incursion into Israel on October 7 last year, Hezbollah has fired 8,000 rockets into Israel.
In September, with a series of pager and walkie-talkie blasts, Israel crippled Hezbollah’s communication network and thousands of its fighters. This was an opening for an all-out offensive.
After eliminating four senior Hezbollah leaders in one week, Israel went for the jugular by targeting Nasrallah. The bombing of Hezbollah’s headquarters was a clear signal of that.
“Israel is making it clear that Nasrallah is marked for death,” The Jerusalem Post said in an analysis. The tonnes of munitions used by Israel in Friday’s attack show that “it has no red lines in its battle against Hezbollah”.
Though he might have been like an apparition on whom not even death could cast an eye, Nasrallah’s death has confronted Hezbollah with the biggest challenge to its existence.