Hezbollah Leader Responds to Killing of Hamas Deputy Chief

Facts

• Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech on Wednesday that Israel's killing of the Deputy Chief of Hamas's Political Bureau, Saleh al-Arouri, in Beirut on Tuesday was a “dangerous” act that required a response. Nasrallah also said that Israel suffered a strategic defeat in the region since the Oct. 7 attack and Hezbollah is not afraid of an all-out war with Israel, adding that it is willing to fight with “no limits.' Nasrallah also claimed that the US was fueling the war in Gaza and preventing a ceasefire.¹
• Nasrallah said that the Palestinian cause had been revived and support for Hamas among Palestinians had increased. He also went on to state that Hamas acted independently and the Oct. 7 attack was 'a Palestinian operation of which we were not aware,' though Nasrallah did specify that he did not intend to distance Hezbollah from the attack with these comments. Nasrallah also said that the war had been 'the greatest challenge' to the resistance in recent months and Hezbollah was fighting Israel on the border 'with precise calculations.'²
• The US Dept. of State said that it was 'incredibly concerned' that the war in Gaza may escalate and spread to other fronts while denying that the US nor Israel were involved in an attack in Iran on Wednesday that killed at least 103 people. The State Department's statement also said that Israel did not give the US any advance notice regarding the Tuesday strike in Beirut that killed al-Arouri.³
• State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller condemned on Tuesday comments made by two far-right Israeli ministers — Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — that called for Palestinians to be removed from the Gaza Strip and for Jewish settlers to return to the enclave. Miller said that several Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, repeatedly clarified that Smotrich and Ben-Gvir's statements did not represent Israeli policy, adding that Gaza will remain 'Palestinian land' but without Hamas in control.⁴
• An anonymous US official said on Tuesday that the US intelligence agencies believed that Hamas, alongside other Palestinian militant groups, used al-Shifa Hospital as a command center and a place to hold Israeli hostages but evacuated the hospital a few days before Israeli forces entered it. The evidence on which they based their assessment was not disclosed. Israel's Nov. assault on the hospital sparked global concern, with the World Health Organization last month describing the hospital's emergency department as resembling a 'bloodbath' while Hamas denied that it had operated in al-Shifa.⁵
• Gaza's health ministry reports that the conflict has killed over 22K people in the Gaza Strip, the majority of whom were women and children. (The official Israeli death toll on Oct. 7 stands at around 1.2K people and there are still over 100 hostages being held in the Gaza Strip.)⁶

Sources: ¹Al Jazeera, ²L'Orient Today, ³Guardian (a), ⁴Axios, ⁵Reuters and ⁶Guardian (b).

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by CNN. Though, of course, Israel has a right to dismantle Hamas's military capabilities and defend itself from terror, regional escalation is simply not in the interest of the US or Israel. A war with Hezbollah in Lebanon would be a disaster and likely spiral into an all-out regional war with Iran. Israel should focus on extricating Hamas from the Gaza Strip in a humane way and eliminating Hamas's leadership.
• Pro-Israel narrative, as provided by Jerusalem Post. Though this has been a tragic war, Israel must eliminate Hamas and restore deterrence with Iran and its proxy Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a terrorist army with far greater military capabilities than Hamas, and Israel cannot allow its citizens residing in the north to live under the constant threat of terrorist attacks. The UN resolution that ended the 2006 war with Hezbollah has failed to ensure Israel's security, and if some sort of new arrangement is not made, Israel will be forced to intervene.
• Narrative C, as provided by Al Mayadeen. Hezbollah will deal with Israel's belligerent and aggressive behavior at a time it deems most advantageous, as the Lebanese resistance does not just react to security incidents but makes painstaking calculations to both deter Israel from violating Lebanon's sovereignty and avoid an unnecessary and destructive escalation. Israel, backed by the US, is committing atrocious crimes in Gaza to which Hezbollah has been forced to respond.

Predictions