IDF releases image of Hezbollah commanders killed in Lebanon

Hassan Nasrallah’s killing and Hezbollah’s weakening raise serious concerns for Iran-backed groups, Lina Khatib, associate fellow at the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, wrote in The Times.

"If Israel is able to bring Iran’s most powerful asset in the Middle East to its knees, then smaller, newer groups in Iran’s network are potentially easier to undermine," she argued.

Khatib also compared Nasrallah’s death with that of IRGC-QF commander Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq in 2020. She noted that, unlike Soleimani's assassination, which was an isolated incident, Nasrallah’s killing is part of a broader Israeli strategy to dismantle Hezbollah, potentially signaling the start of Iran's diminishing influence in the region.

In a statement mourning the death of Hassan Nasrallah, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian condemned the attack that killed him, placing blame on the US.

"The international community will not forget that the order for this terrorist attack was issued from New York, and the Americans cannot absolve themselves of complicity with the Zionists," the statement published on Iran's official government website read.

Mehrdad Farahmand, a Middle East analyst and political commentator based in Istanbul, told Iran International that "Hassan Nasrallah has become a casualty of the misguided policies of the Islamic Republic and Hamas."

He further noted, "Hezbollah has lost its leader at a time when its very reputation is also in decline."

Farahmand emphasized, "Had Hezbollah been the sole decision-maker, it would have avoided involvement in the Israel-Hamas conflict. However, it is the pressure from the Islamic Republic that has led Hezbollah to its current predicament."

France's Foreign Ministry announced on Saturday that, based on its information, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was confirmed dead, after Israel said it had killed him on Friday.

"According to the information we have, Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah, would indeed have died," the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The rial was trading at 612,000 to the US dollar on Saturday, compared with 592,000 on September 20, when Hezbollah began to suffer mass casualties as a result of exploding pagers and walkie-talkies. As Israeli air strikes intensified in Lebanon earlier this week and culminated in the reported killing of Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, the rial dipped further.

Since 2018, when the US withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal and imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and international banking, the rial has lost 15 times its value. In the past three years alone, it has depreciated by 50%.

This sharp devaluation has coincided with soaring inflation, now hovering between 40-50%, pushing tens of millions of Iranians into poverty and creating a potentially volatile public mood.

The Iranian government has been quietly signaling an interest in new negotiations with the West this month to reduce sanctions, but so far, the US and its European allies maintain that only a genuine change in behavior will lead to talks."