By ABC Middle East correspondents Eric Tlozek, Toby Mann and Basel Hindeleh
Photo: AFP / Patrick Baz
Analysis: The death of Hassan Nasrallah is a monumental moment for the Middle East.
The leader of the region's most powerful militia and Iran's strongest ally is gone and Hezbollah, the group he led, has been decimated by intense Israel attacks.
It's a very different outcome to the last time Hezbollah fought Israel.
"Nasrallah wins the war", the Economist magazine declared when Israel and Hezbollah signed a ceasefire after a 34-day war in 2006.
The leader of "The Party of God" had miscalculated, provoking an Israeli invasion when he ordered the kidnapping of soldiers in the Golan Heights, but still claimed victory despite dire Lebanese casualties and infrastructure damage.
Nasrallah's popularity soared, reminiscent of the heights of 2000 when Hezbollah guerilla attacks saw Israel withdraw from Lebanon after 18 years of military occupation.
Nasrallah's standing in the Middle East would rise and fall throughout subsequent conflicts.
"Nasrallah was not just the leader of this movement, but he was a major figure in Lebanon and indeed the Middle East," Mouin Rabbani, a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Qatar, told the ABC.
"He was an iconic figure, a charismatic figure of regional significance. In that respect, you could compare him to Egypt's [Gamal Abdel] Nasser or [Yasser] Arafat in the Palestinian movement."
Hassan Nasrallah had been broadcasting from a secret location. Photo: AMMAR AMMAR / AFP
Born into a Shia Muslim family, Nasrallah grew up in a camp in the Karantina suburb next to Beirut's port.
The area had long housed poor and displaced people from around the region, but Nasrallah's family would eventually flee the Lebanese civil war and return to their home village near Tyre.
It was there that the 15-year-old Nasrallah joined Amal, a Shia militia.
He spent time in Iraq and then Iran before returning to Lebanon.
Factional battles pushed him into Hezbollah, which split from Amal in 1982, after Israel invaded.
As the two Shia militias fought during the late 1980s, Nasrallah moved his way up Hezbollah's ranks.
When an Israeli helicopter strike killed then-Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Musawi in 1992, Nasrallah was elected secretary general.
He was only 32, but was battled-hardened and had strong ties with Iran.
Supporters of Hezbollah watch a televised speech by Hassan Nasrallah in November 2023. Photo: AFP
Through the '90s, Nasrallah built Hezbollah from an Islamist militia into a political force, becoming a leader in national politics despite not holding any public office.
Under his leadership, Hezbollah won 12 seats in the first parliamentary elections held after the civil war, and has run candidates in every vote since.
Hezbollah was the only militia that didn't surrender its weapons at the end of Lebanon's civil war.
Nasrallah used them to fight against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon through much of the '90s.
But after the "Divine Victory" of 2006, he became increasingly fearful of an Israeli assassination attempt, and largely vanished from public appearances.
Living in hiding, he had delivered televised speeches from an undisclosed location as Hezbollah continued its decades-long fight with Israel.
Read more:
Loved and loathed
Under Nasrallah's leadership, Hezbollah has won support among many Lebanese Shia by doing things usually handled by governments.
In areas it controls, Hezbollah has built up health and education services and has also helped those struggling to secure food and energy.
That popularity is largely limited to Shia Muslims in Lebanon and the region, although many Gazans - whose homes were being flattened by Israeli bombs and bulldozers - expressed admiration at Hezbollah's willingness to fight Israel.
Hezbollah is, however, hated by many Lebanese, "including by those who dream of a nation free from sectarianism and where the rule of law prevails", the AFP news wire reported.
Syrians opposed to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad also hate Hezbollah, which sent thousands of fighters across the border in the Syrian civil war to support the dictator.
In Syria, Hezbollah fighters were implicated in multiple attacks on civilians and allegedly blocked food from being delivered to starving people, earning the enmity of senior Arab and Muslim leaders around the region.
Nasrallah's decision to open a "support front" for Hamas in Gaza after the 7 October attacks dragged Lebanon into a war many Lebanese would have preferred to avoid, no matter what they thought of Israel's actions in Gaza.
Observers said his death was a huge blow to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which relied on Nasrallah's leadership of the so-called "Axis of Resistance" of militias around the Middle East, though it may not mean the end of the war with Israel.
"There are indications there will be an escalation and it will all lead to a regional war on all fronts," Qassem Kassir, a Lebanese political analyst who is close to Hezbollah, told the ABC.
"We have to wait now about who will replace Nasrallah. There are many names, but they are kept secret.
"The war will resume."
Rabbani, from the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, said the killing of Nasrallah would not spell the end of Hezbollah.
"Hezbollah is a very deeply entrenched movement that has developed over decades, to an even greater extent than many of its peers, the capacity to replace its fallen leaders and continue to function coherently.
"I think a particularly painful aspect of this and the other assassinations is that a significant part of Hezbollah's aura, of its reputation, was built not just on its capacity for mass mobilisation, for military effectiveness, but specifically on what were believed to be its very effective counter-intelligence and intelligence capabilities.
"So the fact that it has been penetrated so deeply and so effectively is kind of the equivalent of a knockout blow from which it will have to quickly stand up before the count reaches 10."
- This story was first published by the ABC