Broken axis

On Sunday, Israel carried out a fresh wave of airstrikes in Yemen, targeting ports and power plants in two areas controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis.

So what? Excavators are still combing through the wreckage of an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon on Friday. His death, as Israel widens its offensive against Iran’s allies, has the potential to reshape the Middle East.

“Party of God”. Nasrallah, known for his charismatic communication style, has shaped Hezbollah for the past three decades. He also came to embody an Iranian strategy of using proxies to threaten Israel – a strategy that has seldom looked so forlorn.

• Nasrallah’s ability to fuse populist religious politics with the rule of a powerful militia inspired fighters across the Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Yemen, which called themselves the “Axis of Resistance”.
• Under his leadership, Hezbollah positioned itself as a necessary defence against Israel. But it also repressed any force that challenged it, including Lebanon’s military, democratic movements and opponents from other sects.
• As news spread of Nasrallah’s death, supporters dropped to their knees in shock. Local newspapers described people crying in the streets of southern Beirut, in neighbourhoods close to where Nasrallah was killed. In other parts of the capital, bursts of gunfire rang through the streets, likely in celebration.
• Elsewhere, Syrians in rebel-held Idlib distributed sweets to rejoice at the death of a man whose movement helped president Bashar al-Assad wage a bloody civil war. Damascus announced three days of national mourning; Tehran said Iran would mourn for five.

Seismic shift. Benjamin Netanyahu’s willingness to blow through red lines in pursuit of Israel’s enemies has delivered a boost to his domestic popularity. Seizing the moment, his office distributed photos showing him approving the airstrike that killed Nasrallah from the UN General Assembly in New York. “We have settled accounts with someone who was responsible for the murders of countless Israelis,” he said, calling Nasrallah “the main engine of Iran’s axis of evil”.

• Israel’s military says it has killed eight of Hezbollah’s nine most senior military commanders this year, mostly in the past week in strikes on Beirut and across southern and eastern Lebanon, vastly undermining Hezbollah’s power.
• The walkie-talkie and pager attacks earlier this month injured an estimated 1,500 fighters (as well as thousands of civilians) – although the group has some 50,000 members ready to fight on.
• The likeliest candidates to replace Nasrallah are second-in-command Naim Qassem or Nasrallah’s cousin, Hashem Safieddine. The latter has even deeper ties to Iran: his son is married to the daughter of Qassem Suleimani, an Iranian general killed by a US drone strike in 2020.
• Israel on Sunday pledged to continue its assault. “It has lost its head, and we need to keep hitting Hezbollah hard,” said Herzi Halevi, Israel’s military chief of staff. Some officials have raised the prospect of a ground offensive.

Regional pivot. In Tehran, with flags flying at half-mast, Iranian leaders mourned the leader of their most powerful proxy. “Hezbollah is Iran’s most important asset in its bid for regional influence,” said Lina Khatib of Chatham House. “Nasrallah played a pivotal role in achieving that goal for Tehran.”

• The Iranian government is divided on how to respond, with moderates including Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian calling for restraint.
• Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also appears unwilling – for now – to put his country’s forces on the frontline or attack directly. “It will be Hezbollah, at the helm of the resistance forces, that will determine the fate of the region,” he said.

The monarchies of the Persian Gulf, said Khatib, are being cautious, mindful of both Iran and the strife that could erupt in Lebanon as others move into any vacuum left by Hezbollah. One player with apparently diminishing influence is Washington. Netanyahu has set a pattern of listening to advice from the Biden White House and then ignoring it, and US presidential elections in which public support for Israel is a given for both candidates are only weeks away.

What’s more… Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said that a million people could flee their homes, with reports that over 200,000 are already displaced. Most countries would struggle to manage this volume of people. Lebanon will struggle more than most.