Born on 31 August 1960 to a vegetable vendor from the village of Bassouriyeh in South Lebanon, Hasan Nasrallah hailed from a working-class family with no clerical history. He was the first, frequenting mosques and attending religious sermons, where he grabbed the attention of a cleric named Mohammad al-Ghrawi, who advised him to pursue his theology studies at the Hawza Seminary in Najaf, Iraq.
Al-Ghrawi gave him a letter of recommendation to present to Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, who welcomed him and placed him under the guidance of another Lebanese Shiiite named Abbas al-Musawi, who would later become secretary general of Hezbollah. Al-Musawi was a disciple of Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, the supreme Shiite cleric in Lebanon, who had returned from his studies also in Najaf in 1966. After completing his studies in Iraq, the young Nasrallah returned to teach at an Islamic institute in Lebanon founded by Abbas al-Musawi in Baalbak.
When the civil war broke out in April 1975, Nasrallah was exposed to the Amal Movement, a Shiite party founded by an Iranian cleric named Musa al-Sadr. Consecutive Lebanese governments since the turn of the 20th century had paid little attention to the plight of grassroots Shiites like him, although the big landowners of the Shiite community were always represented in government and in the Lebanese parliament. The community was headed by absentee feudal Shiite landlords from powerful families like the Husseinis, Baydouns, and Hamadas, whose doyen Sabri was speaker of parliament in the 1940s. Less fortunate Shiites were forgotten both politically and economically during the 1950s and 1960s, as government fund poured into the flashy development of Beirut, earning it the informal title of “Switzerland of the East.”
In 1974, the towns and villages in which Nasrallah lived his childhood and early teens received no more than 0.7% of the state budget, although the Shiite community accounted for 20% of the Lebanese population. They remained and under-class during the booming years of Beirut, explaining why Musa al-Sadr was able to win their minds and hearts with his Movement of the Dispossessed (Harakat al-Mahrumeen), which came to be known as “Amal.”
With the start of the civil war, Amal got its own militia like all other Lebanese parties and allied itself with the Palestinian cause; it teamed up with Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Kamal Jumblatt’s Social Progressive Party. Amal flourished in the southern neighbourhood of Beirut, known as Dahiyeh, where most Shiites lived and worked, and which was bombed by Israel on 27 September 2024, leading to Nasrallah’s death. Al-Sadr's movement demanded more government funds for the Shiite districts, better infrastructure, increased political representation, and wider access to government jobs.
Inter-Shiite rivalries
In March 1978, Israel staged an invasion of south Lebanon, which radicalised thousands of Shiites and led to them to carry arms with Amal. Among them was an 18-year-old Hassan Nasrallah. Five months later, Musa al-Sadr disappeared under mysterious circumstances while on a visit to Libya that August. He was quickly replaced by Hussein al-Husseini, a notable who enjoyed none of his predecessors’ strengths or charisma.
Many were quick to write off the Amal Movement post-Musa al-Sadr but then came the Islamic revolution in Iran in February 1979, inspiring new fervour among Lebanese Shiites. In 1980, al-Husseini was replaced by Nabih Berri, a secular Shiite lawyer and former Baathist who had excellent relations with Syrian president Hafez al-Assad.
In 1984, Nasrallah and his colleagues broke away from Amal, objecting to Berri’s timid response to the Israeli invasion of the Lebanese capital and his acceptance of a cabinet post under the pro-western president, Amin Gemayel. Amal claimed that they had been discharged for insubordination. With money from Iran they established an Islamic political party aimed at driving the Israelis out of Beirut. It was called Hezbollah, the party of God.
Hezbollah pre-Nasrallah
In October 1983, Hezbollah was blamed for the suicide attack on the premises of international forces in Lebanon, which led to the killing of 371 people, 241 of them being Americans. In June 1985, Hezbollah hijacked TWA Flight 847, forcing it to land at Beirut airport and taking its passengers hostage. They were traded for 700 Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.
The operation’s success increased Hezbollah’s popularity throughout the Lebanese south, and in February 1988, they kidnapped Lieutenant-Colonel William Higgens, an American citizen working with UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFL). Meanwhile, Hezbollah went to war against its former mother organisation, Amal, and in 1987, succeeded in driving Berri’s militias out of Beirut.
Nasrallah briefly cut short his military career to complete his religious studies in Qom, Iran, where he stayed just short of two years. Religious credentials were a must for any ambitious Shiite politician, and he returned to Lebanon in 1989 to lead Hezbollah against Amal militias in Iqlim al-Tuffah, South Lebanon, where he was wounded in battle. At the relatively young age of 29, he was appointed to Hezbollah’s Central Military Committee.
Rise in ranks
In October 1989, Hezbollah supported the Taif Accord, a peace formula orchestrated by Saudi Arabia to bring an end to the Lebanese Civil War. Hezbollah agreed to release Western hostages captured during the war and supported the ousting of army commander Michel Aoun from the presidential palace, who had been named premier by President Amin Gemayel in 1988, after waging a “war of liberation” against the Syrian army that had entered Lebanon in 1976.
Decades later, he would become one of Hezbollah’s prime allies after signing a memorandum of understanding with Nasrallah in February 2006, known as the Mar Mikhail Agreement. In exchange for supporting Hezbollah’s arms and involvement in the Syrian war, Nasrallah promised to make Aoun president, which he eventually did ten years later in October 2016.
Secretary-general of Hezbollah
After the Taif Accords, all Lebanese parties agreed to surrender their arms, except for Hezbollah, which argued that it was not a civil war militia but a “resistance group” fighting the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was president of Iran at the time, and he wholeheartedly supported Hezbollah’s decision, receiving Nasrallah at his office in Tehran in September 1989.
In 1991, Nasrallah’s mentor and friend Abbas al-Musawi became secretary general of Hezbollah, replacing the founding chief Subhi al-Tufayli, who had fallen out with the Iranians. Al-Musawi’s tenure was short, and he was killed by Israel on 16 February 1992. The Iranians—most notably President Rafsanjani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei— backed Nasrallah's claims to succession, and his first task was to avenge Abbas al-Musawi’s death.
On 17 March 1992, a car bomb went off at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people. Nasrallah had sent his first message to the world: take me seriously. In May 1994, Israeli commandos penetrated into Lebanon and captured Mustafa Dirani, a pro-Hezbollah member of Amal.
Nasrallah responded in July 1994 with a suicide attack at the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people, although Hezbollah officially denied involvement. For the next ten years, Nasrallah would mention Dirani and other senior Hezbollah prisoners in every single one of his speeches, pledging to release them from Israeli jails. He would eventually succeed with a massive prisoner exchange with Israel in January 2004.
In July 1993, Israel carried out a seven-day offensive against Hezbollah, and Nasrallah responded with what then seemed like an impressive feat, showering Israel with 142 Katyusha rockets. In April 1996, another war broke out that lasted for 16 days, resulting in 489 Katyusha rockets being fired at Israel. In September 1997, Nasrallah's 18-year-old son Hadi was killed in combat, and he received news of his death with stunningly calm composure.
An article in the Cairo daily al-Ahram described Hadi Nasrallah’s funeral, saying: "Hassan Nasrallah entered the hall in solemn dignity accompanied by Jawad, his teenage son. He stopped before each coffin and read the Fatiha until he reached the one marked 13. He beckoned an aide and spoke to him in a whisper. The aide summoned two workers of the Islamic Health Association, a Hezbollah outfit."
"They opened the coffin, exposing a body wrapped in a white shroud. Sheikh Nasrallah's eyes closed, his lips trembled as he offered the Fatiha. Slowly, he bent over and tenderly stroked the head of Hadi, his eldest son, who was 18 years old. A deep silence fell on the room while his right hand rested on his son's chest. It was broken by the clicking of a reporter's camera, but promptly returned when Sheikh Nasrallah looked up in cold surprise."
Hezbollah's popularity grew in the 1990s thanks to its media machine and the countrywide network of schools, charities, mosques and hospitals that it administered. In 2000, Hezbollah’s television station al-Manar began to transmit by satellite, gaining appeal for its opposition to the 2001 war on Afghanistan and the subsequent 2003 invasion of Iraq.
They invested heavily in supporting poverty-stricken Shiite neighbourhoods and subsidised housing for their members and their families. Much of the money initially came from Iran, but by the mid-1990s, Nasrallah began raising his party’s own money through investment projects and major donations from Lebanese Shiites working in Africa.
The 2000 liberation of South Lebanon
Nasrallah's frequent attacks on Israel often resulted in retaliatory attacks on South Lebanon. In 1999, however, Israel's new premier, Ehud Barak, responded by bombing Beirut one year before unilaterally withdrawing from Southern Lebanon on 24 May 2000. Nasrallah was hailed as the hero responsible for this liberation, ending an occupation that had lasted since 1978.
President Emille Lahhoud received him as a guest of honour at the Presidential Palace, and in 2000, he met with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan during a visit to Lebanon. Many speculated that he would now lay down his arms and transform Hezbollah into a political party, but Nasrallah had other plans, claiming that Israel still occupied the Sheba Farms in South Lebanon, which ought to be liberated as well.
In addition to continuing to build its arsenal, Hezbollah entered the political landscape, running for parliament and winning 12 seats in 2000. In 1992, they had won eight seats in the 128-seat parliament, and pretty soon, their share was fixed, albeit unofficially, at 17 MPs, with another 17 MPs for Amal.
At first, however, Hezbollah refused to assume government office, claiming that this was not the job of a resistance party, but over the past 20 years, that position has waned, and their share has been 1-3 posts in every cabinet. Never were they given major posts like foreign affairs or interior, and their share was mostly public works, labour, and, notably, the Ministry of Health during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Nasrallah and Rafic Hariri
After 9/11, then-US president George W. Bush wanted to designate Hezbollah as a “terrorist organisation” but was talked out of the project by then-Lebanese premier Rafic Hariri, then standing as a staunch Hezbollah ally. Hezbollah had supported his rise to power in 1992, and in return, he pledged, in every one of his cabinet statements, to protect and “embrace” the arms of Hezbollah.
Their relationship would sour in future years over Hariri’s role in UNSCR 1559, which called for ending Syrian military presence in Lebanon, and by the 2004 extension of President Lahhoud’s mandate, leading up to Hariri’s assassination on 14 February 2005.
Things got bad for Hezbollah, and a handful of its allies in Lebanese security were arrested, all charged with plotting to kill Hariri with the support of Nasrallah and Syria. They would all be released in 2009 after accusations were dropped for lack of evidence.
Then came the forced evacuation of Syrian troops in April, which resulted in the creation of two rival camps in Lebanon. One was called 8 March and headed by Hezbollah; it included the Amal Movement, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and Suleiman Frangieh’s Marada Movement. It was anti-West and pro both Syria and Iran.
The second coalition was called 14 March, and it included Hariri’s Future Movement, the Social Progressive Party of Walid Jumblatt, and the Lebanese Forces of Samir Gea,gea who was released from jail shortly after the Hariri assassination in 2005. A Special Tribunal for Lebanon was created to investigate Hezbollah’s murder, and in 2020, it named Hezbollah chief Mustafa Badreddine as the single Hezbollah member responsible for the assassination. Nasrallah himself was not named, but he refused to hand over Badreddine.
The July 2006 War
Seventeen months after Hariri’s killing, another war broke out between Hezbollah and Israel, this time after Nasrallah’s troops had taken two Israeli soldiers hostage. Then-Israeli premier Ehud Olmert promised to free the prisoners and bomb Lebanon back into the Stone Age. He targeted infrastructure across the country, even bombing Beirut airport, which had been renamed Rafic Hariri International Airport.
The war lasted for 34 days and achieved none of its declared objectives, which was seen as a Hezbollah victory. Olmert was eventually forced out of office, and the two Israeli hostages were only released in a prisoner swap, dead—not alive.
During the war, Nasrallah became a popular figure in the Arab world for his dramatic speeches, often linking words to action by declaring an attack on an Israeli ship right as it was happening and famously promising to strike at “Haifa and beyond Haifa.”
For security reasons, however, he withdrew from public sight and began addressing his followers through televised addresses via al-Manar, the most recent of which was on 19 September 2024. Iran helped rebuild Hezbollah’s arsenal after 2006, and UN Security Council 1701 called for the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south, which Hezbollah never abided by.
Domestic challenges
Nasrallah mandated his party to take part in all Lebanese governments with the exception of the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora (July 2005 – May 2008), who blamed them for the 2006 war and was accused of being an American pawn. In May 2008, Siniora tried to dismantle Hezbollah’s telecommunications network at Rafic Hariri International Airport—an act that triggered a domestic confrontation for the first time since Nasrallah’s rise to power in 1992. Hezbollah troops took to the streets with their arms, triggering a mini-civil war that was only overcome through Qatari and Syrian mediation.
Nasrallah supported the election of General Michel Suleiman as president to replace their trusted ally Émile Lahoud, and in October 2016, he brought General Michel Aoun to the presidency in reward for his support of their arms and 2012 intervention in the Syrian war.
In return for Aoun as president, they agreed to the appointment of their old foe, Saad Hariri, as premier. This was surprising for a man who had criticised them day and night for the 2005 killing of his father. During Hariri’s first tenure as premier, Hezbollah joined his cabinet for the sole purpose of bringing him down with a collective walkout in 2011.
This time, however, Hariri worked well with Hezbollah, promising to support their arms in exchange for steady support for his premiership, even after his sudden resignation in light of the 4 August 2020 explosion at the port of Beirut, which claimed over 200 lives and destroyed parts of the Lebanese capital.
When the Special Tribunal verdict was released in 2020, Hariri was prime minister, and he did not say a word against Nasrallah, nor did he push for the extradition of Badreddine, fearing a walkout like the one Hezbollah staged in 2011.
Under Aoun’s presidency, however, the country went from one low to another, starting with the 2019 October Revolution against corruption and nepotism, onto COVID-19 in 2020, followed by the Beirut blast that August and then the financial crisis.
The 2019 revolt targeted Hezbollah and Aoun’s son-in-law and then foreign minister Gibran Bassil, who had headed the president’s Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) since 2016. Nasrallah stood firmly behind both Aoun and Bassil. After Aoun's term ended in October 2022, Nasrallah’s choice for premier was his long-time ally Suleiman Frangieh of the Marada Movement, which he continued to support firmly until his assassination on 27 September 2024.
