The murder of Hassan Nasrallah: Imperialism abandons all restraint in the face of global war

The World Socialist Web Site condemns the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and hundreds of Beirut civilians by Israel and the United States on Saturday. The massive bombardment that killed Nasrallah is a clear violation of several international laws of war, including bans on assassinations and indiscriminate bombings of civilian areas.

With the assassination of Nasrallah, the imperialist powers are demonstrating that they will stop at nothing in their quest to re-impose the shackles on the former colonies.

Nasrallah had been Secretary General of Hezbollah since 1992. The group was founded as an “Islamic resistance” against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon between 1982 and 2000, inspired by the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The group mobilized widely during the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in 2006 with the aim of destroying Hezbollah Popular support and forced Israel and the Bush administration to accept a UN-backed ceasefire that was widely viewed as a debacle for Israel. Now Israel has used Hamas' attack on October 7, 2023 to exact bloody revenge for this embarrassment.

On Saturday, Israeli F-15 fighter jets dropped 85 bombs, most of them US-supplied 2,000-pound bunker busters, on an underground compound in central Lebanon where Nasrallah was meeting with other leaders. The strikes completely destroyed several high-rise residential complexes.

“The attack leveled at least four large buildings in two locations and caused 1,000 feet of extensive damage,” the reported Washington Post. “A video filmed from a window shows at least four different pillars rising above the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh. The clouds appear to be dozens of meters wide and tall, billowing over the buildings below. Screams can be heard in the background.”

The White House's attempt to distance itself from the attack was not only absurd from the start, but was quickly debunked. Israel quickly released footage of Israeli jets taking off with bombs under their wings, sending a clear and deliberate signal that this massacre was “made in the USA.”

US President Joe Biden quickly and publicly endorsed Nasrallah's killing, declaring: “His death in an Israeli airstrike is a sign of justice for his many victims.” Biden added: “The United States fully supports Israel's right to… against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and all other Iran-backed terrorist groups.” He also said he had “directed my Secretary of Defense to further improve the defensive posture of U.S. forces in the Middle East to deter aggression and reduce risk of a major regional war.”

The Biden administration's repeated claims that it is seeking a “ceasefire,” “de-escalation,” and a “peaceful solution” to the Middle East crisis are merely war disinformation aimed at furthering the White House's real goal of inciting a regional war. to facilitate targeting Iran. Netanyahu's government, financed and armed by the United States, is not an independent actor but acts as America's proxy.