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      Death of Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s Leader, Pushes Mideast Conflict Into New Territory

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      Tehran is faced with deciding how, or whether, to retaliate after the death of the leader of Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militia and Iranian proxy.Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, on Saturday confirmed the death of Hassan Nasrallah, its longtime leader, in a strike marking a major escalation of Israel’s campaign against Iran’s proxies in the Middle East.The death of Mr. Nasrallah, after Israeli bombs flattened three apartment buildings shielding what it said were Hezbollah’s underground headquarters, pushed Israel’s war against Iran-backed forces into new territory. Iran has long sought to have the proxies — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen — serve as the front line in its fight with Israel.But if one of its most important military assets, Hezbollah, has been substantially weakened, it could leave Israel feeling less threatened and put pressure on Iran to decide whether to respond.While fiercely condemning the attack, Iran’s leaders have not taken any direct steps in retaliation, nor have they punished Israel for the killing last month of the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. That inaction has led some analysts to conclude that the Iranians do not want to risk a direct confrontation with Israel.Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, released a statement on Saturday saying, “All the resistance forces in the region stand with and support Hezbollah.”Iranians at an anti-Israeli gathering in support of Hezbollah in Tehran on Saturday.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Here’s Who Remains in Hezbollah’s Leadership

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      Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, has sustained blow after blow over the past few weeks, as Israeli strikes killed several of the group’s longtime military and political leaders.On Saturday, Israel said it had killed Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s decades-long leader, in a massive airstrike in Beirut that destroyed four residential buildings. Israel has also killed three leaders of Hezbollah’s top military decision-making body, the Jihad Council: Fuad Shukr, Ali Karaki and Ibrahim Aqeel.Above is a look at the organization’s remaining leadership. More

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      Israeli Military Video Shows Nasrallah Likely Killed by 2,000-Pound Bomb

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      A video published by the Israeli military showed that planes it said were used in the attack that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, on Friday night carried 2,000-pound bombs, according to munitions experts and a New York Times analysis.The video showed eight planes fitted with at least 15 2,000-pound bombs, including the American-manufactured BLU-109 with a JDAM kit, a precision guidance system that attaches to bombs, according to Trevor Ball, a former U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technician. These bombs, a type of munition known as bunker busters, can penetrate underground before detonating.Wes Bryant, a former U.S. Air Force targeting specialist who also reviewed the video, agreed with the analysis. In text messages with The Times, he said the bombs were “exactly what I would expect” to be used in what Israel has said was an attack on Mr. Nasrallah in Hezbollah’s underground headquarters.In May, the Biden administration announced it had paused a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel because of concerns over civilian safety in Gaza.The video, published Saturday on the Israeli military’s official Telegram channel with the caption “Israeli Air Force Fighter Jets Involved in the Elimination of Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah’s Central Headquarters in Lebanon,” shows at least eight planes in a row armed with 2,000-pound bombs. Some are too far away to clearly identify the exact model, but the closer planes are seen armed with BLU-109 bombs. That model of bomb is also identifiable when the video shows two planes taking off, with one plane carrying six of those munitions. Then the video shows a plane returning at dusk to the Israeli air base without any bombs.Israel Defense Forces via Telegram More

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      Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah Leader, Dead at 64

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      Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the militant Hezbollah organization in Lebanon for more than three decades, building it into a domestic political force and a potent regional military power with ballistic missiles that could threaten Tel Aviv, was killed on Friday in heavy Israeli airstrikes near Beirut. He was 64.Both Hezbollah and Israel announced his death on Saturday. Israeli officials had said that Mr. Nasrallah was the target of the attack, which rocked the area known as the Dahiya, a dense urban area south of Beirut, with such violent force that residents fled in fear as a giant mushroom cloud rose over the city. For almost two decades, since Hezbollah fought a monthlong war against Israel in 2006, Mr. Nasrallah had largely avoided public appearances and eschewed using a telephone out of concern that he would be assassinated.In recent weeks, Israel had carried out repeated airstrikes in the same area to kill other top Hezbollah commanders, including some founding members who had been with the organization since it was established in the early 1980s to fight the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.Mr. Nasrallah took over the group in 1992, at 32, after an Israeli rocket killed his predecessor. Over the years, his black beard turned white beneath the black turban that marked him as a revered Shiite Muslim cleric and a sayyid, a man who can trace his ancestry back to the Prophet Muhammad.Mr. Nasrallah in 2002 during an interview with The New York Times.James Hill for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At Least Four Apartment Buildings Were Destroyed by Israeli Strikes, Videos Show

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      A New York Times analysis of verified videos, photos and satellite imagery shows that at least four residential buildings on one street were destroyed Friday night when Israel struck part of southern Beirut, targeting Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.Three of the buildings were completely flattened, while another collapsed, with the upper floors partly intact.All four of the destroyed structures were residential buildings along the same street. Two neighboring apartment buildings that were at least seven stories tall were hit. About 100 yards away, two neighboring buildings that were also at least seven stories were also hit.Footage recorded on top of the debris of a flattened building also shows significant damage to several surrounding buildings. The blasts tore the facades off the lower floors and blew out many of the windows. The strikes destroyed nearby vehicles and left craters in the streets about 700 feet away.A video filmed during the strikes and posted on the social media app Telegram showed several distinct smoke plumes. An enormous cloud of smoke rose from the area of the four destroyed buildings identified by The Times, and one large plume of smoke rose from areas slightly to the east of the buildings. Multiple additional explosions can be heard and seen in the video.The extent of the damage from the strikes was not yet clear. More

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      Israel Bombs Residential Site in Effort to Kill Hezbollah Leader

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      The strike came barely an hour after the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, delivered a fiery address to the U.N. General Assembly.The Israeli military bombed residential buildings south of Beirut on Friday that it said stood over the central headquarters of Hezbollah, barely an hour after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a combative address to the United Nations in which he vowed to defeat the group and other Iranian-backed militias.A huge blast shook the Dahiya, an area south of Beirut where Hezbollah holds sway, and thick black smoke began rising above the skyline, in what appeared to have been the most intense bombing in the area since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began last October.The strike targeted Hassan Nasrallah, the cleric who since 1992 has led Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese armed group and political party, according to Israeli and American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence. It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Nasrallah was killed, though there were growing concerns in Tehran that he was in the buildings when they were hit, three Iranian officials said.Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said the bombing had caused the “complete decimation” of four to six residential buildings. At least six people were killed and more than 90 others injured, the Health Ministry said, although Mr. Abiad warned that the toll was likely to rise.“They are residential buildings. They were filled with people,” Mr. Abiad told The New York Times. “Whoever is in those buildings is now under the rubble.”An injured person being helped at the scene of the bombing.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In U.N. Speech, Netanyahu Declares That Israel Is ‘Winning’

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      The Israeli prime minister castigated Israel’s critics and the United Nations itself during his visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly.When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel arrived in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly, he seemed to be entering a lion’s den.Speaker after speaker at the annual gathering of world leaders had portrayed Israel as a global villain. Police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who called Mr. Netanyahu a war criminal. His public rebuttal of a Biden administration plan to pause the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah raised tensions between the two governments.But Mr. Netanyahu bulldozed his way through his visit, castigating Israel’s critics and the United Nations itself, offering no diplomatic concessions, and ordering an airstrike in Beirut that may have killed Israel’s long hunted archnemesis, the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.The strike landed even as Mr. Netanyahu delivered defiant remarks to a U.N. General Assembly hall — largely emptied after dozens of diplomats walked out in protest — in which he triumphantly declared of Israel’s multiple conflicts: “We are winning.”It is an assessment some U.S. officials say could reflect short-term truth while skirting past the risk of a larger conflict that could be devastating for all involved.Hours later, senior Israeli officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military operation, expressed remarkable confidence about their military and sabotage campaign against Hezbollah. Their blows against the group over the past two weeks and Mr. Nasrallah’s possible death could be a turning point, they said, in their ongoing struggle with Iran, which arms and funds Hezbollah, Hamas and other proxy forces in what the officials portrayed as a plan to destroy Israel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Likely to Have Enough Weapons for Multiple Conflicts

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      Over the last week alone, Israel launched more than 2,000 airstrikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and continued its near-daily bombings against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Its air defenses also fended off attacks, in one instance intercepting a ballistic missile headed for Tel Aviv.And there are no signs of the onslaught slowing. “We’re not stopping, while simultaneously preparing plans for the next phases,” the Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said on Wednesday.But how long can Israel keep it up?Military and weapons experts say that is not clear. Israel, like many countries, is highly secretive about the weapons in its stockpile, and government spokespeople who vigorously safeguard that information did not respond to requests for comment.Yet there are several reasons why experts believe Israel could outlast its adversaries in its two-front offensive, even while defending itself from approaching strikes. Israel’s defense industry churned out so many weapons last year that it was able to export some, even despite the war in Gaza beginning in October. The United States has sent Israel at least tens of thousands of missiles, bombs and artillery rounds in recent years.And given the threats it has faced, Israel has almost certainly built up its stockpiles to sustain multiple conflicts at once — especially if Iran rallies its allied groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen to strike at the same time.“It will not run out, because in the Middle East, you cannot run out of weapons,” said Yehoshua Kalisky, a military technology expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “The leaders know how to calculate the amount of weapons that are needed, and what they would have to have in the stockpile, because in this jungle you have to be strong.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More