Hassan Nasrallah (31 August 1960-27 September 2024) was Secretary-General of Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist political party and terror group in Lebanon, from 16 February 1992 to 27 September 2024, succeeding Abbas al-Musawi and preceding Naim Qassem.
Biography[]
Hassan Nasrallah was born in Bourj Hammoud, Lebanon in 1960, and he was educated in Tyre before joining the Amal Movement during the Lebanese Civil War. While teaching at an Amal school, he joined Hezbollah in 1982. After completing his religious studies in Iran, he returned to Lebanon and became Hezbollah's leader after the assassination of Secretary-General Abbas al-Musawi in 1992. Under Nasrallah's leadership, the terror group acquired long-range rockets, which they used to strike northern Israel. Israel's withdrawal from a costly occupation of South Lebanon in 2000 boosted Hezbollah's popularity, but its provocation of the Second Lebanon War in 2006 was subject to local and regional criticism. Nasrallah was a polarizing figure; he was popular among his supporters for speaking with an urban accent and making jokes during his speeches, while he was also criticized for his assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005 and the group's role in an ammonium nitrate explosion at the Port of Beirut that killed 218 people and injured over 7,000 on 4 August 2020. He later directed Hezbollah to intervene in the Syrian Civil War on the side of Bashar al-Assad's Shia regime, and he opted to engage in the Israel-Hamas War by launching rocket attacks on northern Israei communities. On 27 September 2024, Israel retaliated by striking Hezbollah's subterranean headquarters in Dahieh, Beirut during a visit by Nasrallah, killing him and several of the group's senior leaders.
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