‘Israel’ Recalls 30 Years of Sayyed Nasrallah’s Leadership: Advanced Mentality, ‘Israeli’ Affairs Top Expert

By Yuav Limor | ‘Israel’ Hayom

Translated and Summarized by al-Ahed News

After the assassination of Hezbollah’s former secretary general, [Sayyed] Abbas al-Moussawi, in February 1992 using ‘Israeli’ Air Force helicopters, Hezbollah launched a series of retaliatory operations. To replace the relatively moderate al-Moussawi, Hezbollah elected [Sayyed] Hassan Nasrallah, who was more extreme than his predecessor, to lead the group.

Nasrallah started leading the group through a radical path, in which he focused on fighting the ‘Israeli’ army in the ‘security belt’ and launching missiles towards the Galilee. During that period, around 25 ‘Israeli’ soldiers were killed annually in South Lebanon, most of whom were killed in battles against Hezbollah.

Nasrallah took very well advantage of the popular uprising that called for the withdrawal of the ‘Israeli’ army from Lebanon. He did so via a doubled plan: To drive the ‘Israeli’ audience to despair, and to deter the ‘Israeli’ army from launching attacks. The two sides of the plan proved successful: The first finally led ‘Israeli’ 1999 elections’ candidates (Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Yitzhak Mordechai) to pledge that in case they were elected for premiership, they are going to withdraw from Lebanon. Indeed, Ehud Barak was elected and he fulfilled his promise.

In the second plan, Hezbollah scored another success. The series of practical failures and the number of killed soldiers pushed the ‘Israeli’ military to withdrawing from several sites and reducing its attacks. Hezbollah took advantage of this to intensify offensives that targeted [military] sites, especially through implanting explosives along the axes and launching anti-armored missiles, most of which caused fatalities among the ‘Israel’ military personnel, mainly in the last year of the army’s presence in the ‘security belt’ region.

The ‘Israeli’ military’s withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000 was the pivotal event for Hezbollah. At the time, Nasrallah was viewed as a hero in Lebanon and the entire Arab world. It was once he delivered the “spider’s web” speech, in which he claimed that despite its nuclear weapon and Air Force, ‘Israel’ is weaker than a spider’s web.

Brigadier General (res.) Dror Shalom, who served until the past year as the head of the researches center and the intelligence branch, said: “Nasrallah has a one of a kind personality. He has an advanced mentality, with a lot of charisma and emotional intelligence. Such features made Hezbollah enjoy a huge popularity.”

Shalom further added, “We cannot underrate Nasrallah. He is a serious person. He proved himself over the past years as the most informed expert in the ‘Israeli’ affairs in the Arab world. Nasrallah is still ‘Israel’s’ most dangerous enemy. He knows us more than any other body, and he possesses an open file against us.”

In many fields, Hezbollah has accumulated a huge arsenal, making it possess 150,000 rockets and missiles that can hit every spot in ‘Israel’, and which are hidden in different spots across Lebanon, especially in the south.