Nasrallah: A secretive life ends in secrecy

In 2016, a reporter and a photographer were blindfolded and taken to Beirut. This was because Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to give the New York Times a rare interview. When they reached their destination, their belongings were thoroughly checked. Even their pens were unscrewed. Only ink was found. Nasrallah was informed about it, and the interview was conducted. It would be the only time that the chief of the Lebanon-based terror organisation gave an interview to an international media outlet.
The blindfolding of journalists and the tight security also shows that Nasrallah, who moulded Hezbollah in his own image for three decades, knew the grave risk to his life. He knew he “was on a mission” and he avoided any spectacle. He only socialised with a close-knit group within Hezbollah, and attended rare meetings with allies.
Nasrallah was, however, killed by Israel on September 27 after Israel bombed Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut. This was after several Hezbollah’s leaders and members had been eliminated by pager bomb attacks by Israel.
His followers didn’t get to see his body and pay their last respects.
The leader who rarely appeared in public was killed in his bunker. And not just in life, even in death, it is not known where he has been buried.
It was revealed on Friday that Nasrallah had been given a temporary burial in a secret location until a public funeral could be held.
People across the Middle East, mostly Shias, mourned the Hezbollah chief’s death. On top of that list was Iran’s Supreme Leader, Atatollah Ali Khamenei, who grieved Nasrallah’s death.
Hezbollah is supported by Iran and Nasrallah was a close ally of Khamenei.
A charismatic orator, who turned Hezbollah into a regional force and political entity in Lebanon, it might be very difficult for him to be replaced.
His popularity can be gauged from the fact that a hundred newborn babies were named after him in Iraq a day after his killing.
But how did a vehetable vendor’s son from a poor neighbourhood in Beirut suburbs rise to become one of the most powerful figures in the Middle East?
Nasrallah was born in 1960, and he was the son of a vegetable seller, and they lived in a poor Beirut neighbourhood with Christian Armenians and others.
“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).
He had lived in an environment where Shia Muslims had been marginalised for a long time.
Nasrallah’s tryst with politics began when he met an Iranian scholar, Musa al-Sadr, who wanted to mobilise the Shia Muslims of Lebanon to seek more resources and representation for Shias, reported the Guardian.
He joined Amal (Movement of the Deprived), a Shia militia, just before the civil war broke out in Lebanon in 1975. A Lebanese Resistance front had been launched to protect Southern Lebanon.
In 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power after the Iranian revolution. This energised the Shia community everywhere in the Middle East. Nasrallah would grow closer to Khomeini while studying in Najaf in Iraq.
But Nasrallah was not content with the moderate ideas. He left to find more radical ones.
He left for Najaf in Iraq to study at a religious seminary wherein a more active role for Shia scholars was being considered.
Here, he met Sayyed Abbas Mussawi.
In 1978, Iraqi Baathists attacked the Shias. Both Nasrallah and Mussawi left for Lebanon.
In 1982, Israel attacked Lebanon, after an attempt on the life of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador to London, by the Abu Nidal Organisation, a wing of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).
Israel attacked Beirut for 10 weeks after this assassination and even occupied it in September to drive out the PLO.
Many groups have come together now and Mussawi and Nasrallah supported Khomeini’s regime in Iran. But they felt betrayed by the Amal Movement for joining the national committee formed in Lebanon.
They thought resistance was the only way out.
Nasrallah worked under this coalition called Islamic Jihad. They conducted suicide bombings against US and French peacekeepers and their “enemies”.
Three years later, in 1982, Hezbollah, which translates to ‘Party of God’, was formed.
In 1985, a manifesto was launched. It discussed the destruction of Israel, and it criticised both the US and the USSR in this cold-war era.
The organisation needed an emphatic public speaker, an organiser and an Islamic scholar. Nasrallah needed an organisation.
In the same year, Nasrallah became the head of Hezbollah’s executive council and a member of its Shura council, which decides its political course. He visited Iran and discussed the Iran-Iraq war.
He spoke Persian more fluently than most people.
He took charge of Hezbollah in 1992, after his predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi, was assassinated by Israel.
“They used to tell me: You like the Iranians, and they like you, so you go to Iran. I would meet with his eminence, the Imam [Khomeini]. I would sit down with him for one hour, two hours or even more,” the Middle East Eye quoted Nasrallah as saying.
During the mid-1990s, Hezbollah expanded its operations in Israeli-occupied areas. This led to guerrilla warfare.
One of the first wins for Hezbollah bore a personal cost for its leader.
He had always asked that Jews return to their countries of origin.
In 2000, Israel’s withdrawal from South Lebanon brought Hezbollah popularity in the Middle East. But Nasrallah lost his son in a conflict with the Israeli troops.
In 2006, Hezbollah attacked a contested border between it and Israel and killed eight Israeli soldiers. This war was not a definitive win.
Now, Nasrallah focused more on emphasising his movement’s Lebanese nationalism.
Nasrallah was barely seen meeting people outside of Hezbollah’s ruling circles. He even made only little public appearances.
He was one of the best orators with a great command of classical Arabic. He even knows how to weave his speech with references to lost Arab virtue.
He always had extraordinary confidence as his predecessor had been killed by an Israeli rocket. The only interview which he granted to a media outlet was to the New York Times in 2002.
Iran has been Hezbollah’s sponsor and to manage its demands with Hezbollah’s aims was a delicate balancing act. Nasrallah agreed to it reluctantly.
This started in 2013, when Hezbollah sent thousands of its fighters to Syria on Tehran’s request to support the regime of Bashar-al-Asad.
Back home, Nasrallah’s resistance to political reform hurt Hezbollah’s image.
Nasrallah had even praised Hamas for the October 7 attacks against Israel. “It was a heroic, courageous, creative, perfectly done and great act to which all salutes should be raised,” he said.
The next day, Hezbollah started attacking Israeli positions on the Lebanese-Israeli border.
The attacks have been ongoing since then. Since October 7, Hezbollah has fired over 8,000 rockets into Israel.
Hezbollah does see itself as a big actor in the ‘Axis of Resistance’ led by Iran.
Several people living in South Lebanon thank Hezbollah for protecting it from Israeli occupation.
Others like him for his humble and simple lifestyle.
His critics say Hezbollah has made a ‘mini-state’ in Lebanon.
“I don’t wait for history to absolve meâ€æwhat matters is that God absolves us, and we satisfy him,” Nasrallah had said in 2016.
It is also said that he ruined Lebanon’s relations with richer states in the Middle East, which could help the country’s economic issues. His support for the government in Syria has also been criticised.
In 2011, Hezbollah intervened on the ground in Syria, helping the Bashar al-Assad regime to survive.
Nasrallah had reiterated how the fall of Assad would be a loss of an ally for Lebanon.
Both Nasrallah and Hezbollah had been “hardened by successive decades of conflict within Lebanon, with Israel and later with Syria”, reported The Guardian.
Under his lead, Hezbollah played a key role in ending Israel’s 30-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.
Nasrallah became a hero in Middle Eastern countries after declaring “divine victory” against Israel after 34 days of war in 2006.
To add to that, Nasrallah had a personal following, and he steered the Shia Muslim Movement through several major changes. He balanced the military role and social welfare.
When it was needed, he also made Hezbollah members become part of Lebanon’s government. He was both a politician and a military leader, who would be difficult for Hezbollah to replace.
Now, Nasrallah is dead. He had amassed support and maintained a delicate balance between Hezbollah’s sponsor Iran and the needs of Hezbollah. He was also a prolific speaker who garnered the support of Lebanese people. It is safe to say it will be difficult to fill in his shoes for Hebzbollah.