Portraits of “martyrs” of Hezbollah freshly fallen against Israel rub shoulders with those, debilitated, of the fighters killed during the previous wars of the “Islamic resistance”, in the Khirbet Selm cemetery. Perched on a hill in southern Lebanon, ten kilometers as the crow flies from the border with the Jewish state, this historic bastion of the Party of God has become a place of pilgrimage.
Fighters in fatigues and families dressed in black came to pay their last respects to Wissam Tawil. A child of the village, the 48-year-old commander of the elite force Radwan was killed in an Israeli strike on January 8.
On the stage of the Shiite religious center, his son Hussein said, without giving in to emotion, the eulogy for this father held as a hero. The boy embodies the next generation that Hassan Nasrallah wanted to glorify, this Sunday, January 14, alongside those who lead “ the struggle for the liberation of Palestine » within Hezbollah since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, at the cost of 141 deaths. To the hundreds of activists who came to listen to him that day, via screen, he promised them resistance to Israel, but not total war.
The strategy has not deviated since the leader of Hezbollah outlined it on November 3, 2023. The elimination of Wissam Tawil and Hamas leader Saleh Al-Arouri in Beirut gave rise to a calculated response , on the principle of reciprocity and in compliance with the tacit rules of engagement between the two belligerents. Maintaining the balance of deterrence with the Jewish state is the objective that Hassan Nasrallah set for himself in the confrontation he initiated as “support front” to its ally, Hamas.
Neither he nor his Iranian sponsor want a war that could set the region ablaze. With a raised finger, the Shiite leader maintains the threat, but he also extends a hand towards a compromise with the Jewish state. The ball is returned to Israel’s court, which seems ready to fight. “Hezbollah has gained in maturity and flexibility. He’s not going to get dragged into a war he doesn’t want. But we are at a pivotal and dangerous moment: either we move towards a compromise, or Israel continues its escalation at the risk of slipping.”estimates Kassem Kassir, a Lebanese expert who has connections within the movement.
Outstanding strategist, respected even by Israeli officers
The silence in which Hassan Nasrallah walled himself in the first month of the war baffled his sympathizers and his enemies, in Lebanon and abroad. They did not find the tribune with the fiery, and sometimes dramatic tone, who announced responses live during the 2006 conflict. From the bunker where he has been hiding since, the 63-year-old man, with his now graying beard, strives to explain to them, in a measured tone, the war that is being fought and the victory already acquired against Israel. The destruction of this enemy “more fragile than a spider’s web” and the liberation of Palestine will come in due time.
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