Bierut – Zaytoun News
Hezbollah on Saturday confirmed that Hassan Nasrallah, its longtime leader, in a massive airstrike had been martyred after Israeli airstrikes slammed into the area housing its underground headquarters near Beirut.
Nasrallah, the former leader of Lebanon’s militant Shia Islamist movement, was one of the best known and most influential figures in the Arab region. Nasrallah is a symbol of the axis of resistance and opposition to Israel.
He played a key role in turning Hezbollah into the political and military force it is today. He was revered by the group’s supporters.
Born in 1960, Hassan Nasrallah grew up in Beirut’s eastern Bourj Hammoud neighbourhood, where his father Abdul Karim ran a small greengrocer. He was the eldest of nine children.
He joined the Amal movement, then a Shia militia, after Lebanon descended into civil war in 1975. After a short spell in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf to attend a Shia seminary he rejoined Amal in Lebanon before he and others split from the group in 1982, shortly after Israel invaded Lebanon .
In 1985, Hezbollah officially announced its establishment.
He became leader of Hezbollah in 1992 at the age of 32, after his predecessor Abbas al-Musawi was assassinated in an Israeli helicopter strike.
He led several military operations against Israeli occupation forces between 1985 and 2000, which pushed it to the final stages of complete withdrawal from the south, without agreement with Lebanon.
Following the withdrawal, Nasrallah proclaimed that Hezbollah had achieved the first Arab victory against Israel. He also vowed that Hezbollah would not disarm, saying that it considered that “all Lebanese territory must be restored”, including the Shebaa Farms area.
Under his rule, Hezbollah has become an active element in Lebanese political life and participates in various Lebanese governments and parliamentary committees. Hezbollah is designated as a terrorist organization by Canada, the United States, the European Union and other allied to it like Syria and Yemen.
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