Who is Hassan Nasrallah: Hezbollah's secretary-general killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut

Lebanon's Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who Israel claimed on Saturday it has killed, has led Hezbollah through decades of conflict with Israel, overseeing its transformation into a military force with regional sway and becoming one of the most prominent Arab figures in generations - with Iranian backing.

His regional influence has been on display over nearly a year of conflict ignited by the Gaza war, as Hezbollah entered the fray by firing on Israel from southern Lebanon in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, and Yemeni and Iraqi groups followed suit, operating under the umbrella of "The Axis of Resistance."

"We are facing a great battle," Nasrallah said in an Aug. 1 speech at the funeral of Hezbollah's top military commander, Fouad Shokor, who was killed in an Israeli strike on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut.

Yet when thousands of Hezbollah members were injured and dozens killed when their communications devices exploded in an apparent Israeli attack last week, that battle began to turn against his group.

Responding to the attacks on Hezbollah's communications network in a Sept. 19 speech, Nasrallah vowed to punish Israel.

"This is a reckoning that will come, its nature, its size, how and where? This is certainly what we will keep to ourselves and in the narrowest circle even within ourselves," he said.

Recognized even by his enemies as a skilled orator, Nasrallah's speeches are followed by friend and foe alike.

Wearing the black turban of a Sayyed, or a descendent of the Prophet Mohammad, Nasrallah uses his addresses to rally Hezbollah's base but also to deliver carefully calibrated threats, often wagging his finger as he does so.

He became secretary general of Hezbollah in 1992, aged just 35, the public face of a once shadowy group founded by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in 1982 to fight Israeli occupation forces.

Israel killed his predecessor, Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi, in a helicopter attack. Nasrallah led Hezbollah when its guerrillas finally drove Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation.

'DIVINE VICTORY'

Conflict with Israel has largely defined his leadership. He declared "Divine Victory" in 2006 after Hezbollah waged 34 days of war with Israel, winning the respect of many ordinary Arabs who had grown up watching Israel defeat their armies.

But he became an increasingly divisive figure in Lebanon and the wider Arab world as Hezbollah's area of operations widened to Syria and beyond.

While Nasrallah painted Hezbollah's engagement in Syria - where it fought in support of President Bashar al-Assad during the civil war - as a campaign against jihadists, critics accused the group of becoming part of a regional sectarian conflict.

In the years following the 2006 war, Nasrallah walked a tightrope over a new conflict with Israel, hoarding Iranian rockets in a carefully measured contest of threat and counter-threat.

The Gaza war, ignited by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, prompted Hezbollah's worst conflict with Israel since 2006, costing the group hundreds of its fighters, including top commanders.

After years of entanglements elsewhere, the conflict put renewed focus on Hezbollah's historic struggle with Israel.

"We are here paying the price for our front of support for Gaza, and for the Palestinian people, and our adoption of the Palestinian cause," Nasrallah said in the Aug. 1 speech.

Nasrallah grew up in Beirut's impoverished Karantina district. His family hails from Bazouriyeh, a village in Lebanon's predominantly Shi'ite south, which today forms Hezbollah's political heartland.

He was part of a generation of young Lebanese Shi'ites whose political outlook was shaped by Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Before leading the group, he used to spend nights with frontline guerrillas fighting Israel's occupying army. His teenage son, Hadi, died in battle in 1997, a loss that gave him legitimacy among his core Shi'ite constituency in Lebanon.

Reuters