For 32 years, ever since he took over leadership following Abbas al-Moussawi on February 16, 1992, Hassan Nasrallah, the third long-serving secretary-general of Hezbollah, has been committing crimes as if it were second nature to him.
He engineers terrorist acts as if he were born for this purpose, leaving no evil uncommitted: from killing Israelis, Americans, and French, to the wholesale slaughter of Sunni Arab Muslims – known as “sectarian killing” – in several Arab countries such as Iraq, Yemen, and Syria (more on this later).
In addition, his organization carried out terrorist operations in various countries such as Kuwait, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, among others. Furthermore, he has been involved in money laundering and drug trafficking, leading many countries around the world to classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
Crimes in Syria and Lebanon
The crimes of his party’s men in Syria could fill volumes, beginning with the dismemberment of children and women, starving the elderly and children to death, besieging civilians, depriving them of basic life necessities, looting property, confiscating some lands, and burning others. Women were raped in front of their husbands, and girls in front of their fathers and mothers, all to further crush and humiliate their spirits.
There was also killing, enforced disappearances, and bloody torture, culminating in his men participating in the aircraft bombing of Syrians with several types of bombs. In short, they acted “as if God were on vacation,” as if they wanted to set exclusive records in crimes that surpass much of what is known or read about in ancient times.
It reached the point where his pilots boasted in videos, mocking the Syrians before bombing them with improvised barrel bombs.
Internally, Nasrallah has turned Lebanon, once known as “the Switzerland of the East,” into a crippled, ailing country unable to provide even the minimum of basic services to its citizens. Lebanese decisions now come from Tehran, which treats the captive country as an “Iranian province” that was directed by their man in the southern suburbs of Beirut until a few days ago when he was himself bombed out of this world. The presidential vacuum in Lebanon has become a subject of mockery for many.
Assassinated terror chief was an assassin himself
AMONG HIS numerous crimes against his own countrymen is the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafic Hariri, an attack in which 241 Lebanese citizens were also killed and injured, as well as the 2021 murder of the late great peace advocate, writer, activist, and publisher Lokman Slim that the vast majority of Lebanese attribute to him.
A long list of Lebanese politicians, thinkers, and social leaders were also killed, including Pierre Gemayel, assassinated in 1984; George Hawi, Prof. Samir Kassir and Gebran Tueni (2005); Walid Eido, François Al-Hajj and Antoine Ghanem (2007); Wissam Eid (2008), Wissam Al-Hassan (2012) and Mohammad Chatah (2013), among many others.
Gemayel founded the Christian right-wing Lebanese Social Democratic Party. Two of his sons, Bachir and Amine, were elected president, but Bachir was assassinated before he took office.
Hawi was a Lebanese Orthodox Christian politician considered to have been one of the most important figures of the Lebanese Left since the seventies. Tueni was a Lebanese politician and the former editor and publisher and a strong critic of Syria’s activities in Lebanon who was also killed in a series of assassinations in 2005.
Eido was a politician close to Hariri’s Future Movement. After Hariri’s assassination, he said regarding Hezbollah that “We will sell our blood to buy weapons and confront them. We will never let them control the country.” Al-Hajj was a Lebanese major-general who fought against the Israeli occupation in South Lebanon. Ghanem, a colleague of Hariri and Eido, was the eighth anti-Syrian figure to be assassinated since Hariri.
Eid was a senior Lebanese intelligence police officer within the Internal Security Forces of Lebanon who provided important information regarding the assassination Hariri. Al-Hassan was a Sunni brigadier general and intelligence chief who was a mediator between Hariri and Hezbollah. Chatah, also in the Future Movement, was a Lebanese economist, diplomat and finance minister who represented Lebanon to Western media and attempted to disarm local armed groups.
NASRALLAH ALSO almost officially transformed Lebanon into a major farm for drug cultivation, manufacturing, and export. And he was directly responsible for the Beirut port explosion.
As a reminder, on October 19, 2021, the head of Hezbollah threatened the Lebanese people with his militias, stating that he had 100,000 armed, trained, and ready fighters waiting for his command to suppress the “Lebanese movement.”
The great crime of the Lebanese at that time was simply taking to the streets, demanding democracy, justice, and a state of institutions, and an end to the farcical dependency on Iran. The most prominent slogan was “All means all,” with Hezbollah being at the forefront.
Targeting children in the Golan
Among his most recent crimes was the attack on Druze children thinking they were playing safely in the village playground of Majdal Shams, as if Druze blood had to be added to the bloody record of Ruhollah Khomeini’s prized student, who received from him a legal agency, making Nasrallah the representative of the Iranian regime’s previous supreme leader in Lebanon in religious matters and the collection and distribution of funds. This agency secured his full allegiance to Iran.
AS FOR his international bullying and provocation of war with Israel, it is important to mention that Hezbollah continuously and unabashedly violated UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted by the UN Security Council on August 11, 2006, the Lebanese government the next day and the Israeli government the following day, all unanimously.
The resolution aimed to resolve the conflict between Lebanon and Israel. Nasrallah stated that his forces would respect the ceasefire. Israel mostly withdrew from southern Lebanon; Hezbollah never did.
The current violation occurred on October 8, 2023, the day after Hamas militias carried out their infamous terrorist operations against unarmed Israeli civilians living near the Gaza Strip, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostage. Hezbollah officially announced its participation alongside Hamas in its war against Israel, known as the “Support Front.” For nearly a year since then, the Lebanese-based terrorist group made many attempts to provoke Israel.
As things escalated, Hezbollah and the resistance camp’s media pushed a false narrative, claiming that the party was defending Lebanon, even though Nasrallah did not seek the consent of the Lebanese people or government for this war. Most of them do not want it and yearn for the day they can rid themselves of Iran’s representative on their soil.
Pager incident revealed weakness
If he had had the slightest sense of reason or concern for the Lebanese people’s interests, the two recent incidents of pager and wireless device explosions clearly indicated the disparity in power between the Israeli army and his party, necessitating an immediate retreat and compliance with the UN resolution instead of antagonizing Israel, deliberately launching rockets at it, and displacing northern residents.
All the aforementioned must be stated and documented because confirmed facts and realities often get lost, spun or denied in our Arab world. The assassination of Hezbollah’s secretary-general has become a major issue, with a clear polarization taking shape. We are now witnessing him being transformed into a hero of heroes by the media of the resistance camp, as well as politicians and activists from that camp, using poisonous and false narratives.
Their sole aim is to make us forget all his crimes and terrorism, so that the Arab memory and collective consciousness only remember Nasrallah, the fighter who stood against Israel, ensuring that enmity and hatred continue indefinitely, and that conditions remain stagnant.
People who love and crave peace in Lebanon and worldwide, must not let that happen.