After Nasrallah, what happens next in the Middle East?

Why Israel rolled the dice on Lebanon. SEPTEMBER 30, 2024  |  [VIEW IN BROWSER](  |  [SUBSCRIBE](     A woman weeps over the death of Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's central square on Sept. 28. Stefanie Glinski for Foreign Policy When Israel announced it had killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah at 11 a.m. local time on Saturday, the news was dismissed by many Lebanese as propaganda. But “all hell broke loose” when Hezbollah confirmed the death at 2:30 p.m., according to Stefanie Glinski,[who filed a dispatch from Beirut](. “Across the city, people ran into the streets, firing gunshots into the sky—some in celebration, others in anger, seeking revenge,” she wrote. In Nasrallah’s 32 years of leadership, writes Thanassis Cambanis of Century International, “Hezbollah proved to be Israel’s most effective adversary ever.” Still, Cambanis notes that Hezbollah’s resistance was never about solidarity or self-determination. In the late Nasrallah period, Hezbollah developed a “complacent decadence, corruption, and preoccupation with amassing wealth.” If you read one thing about[Nasrallah’s complicated legacy](, make it this piece. As for what happens next, Daniel Byman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies poses the key question:[Can Israel kill its way to victory over Hezbollah](? This is a high-risk strategy, Byman writes; history suggests that it is rare that such groups are defeated solely by the removal of a key leader—and sometimes, assassinations can even result in an escalation of international terrorism. But Byman also identifies some reasons why Hezbollah may yet seek a respite in the fighting. Read on for why Israel is rolling the dice, and rest assured FP will continue to bring you the analysis you need to make sense of events in the Middle East this week and beyond.—Amelia Lester, deputy editor   New and Noteworthy - Germany’s Climate Prophet: While Green Party co-leader Robert Habeck has emerged as Germany’s “[most popular politician](” in the post-Angela Merkel era, “the longer he stays in office, the more Habeck may be deepening the social divisions over climate policy that he always wanted to overcome,” FP’s Cameron Abadi writes in an excerpt from his new book, Climate Radicals. - Gamers and the Global Culture War: Russian efforts to spread propaganda have extended to nontraditional channels such as [video games](. “The inclusion of gamers in this campaign points at emerging dynamics in a global struggle over human rights online—one that policymakers need to pay closer attention to,” Joshua Foust cautions. - Political Survival vs. Economic Prosperity: China’s economy faces severe challenges under President Xi Jinping, with slowing growth, high unemployment, and declining public confidence. 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