The Last Days of Hassan Nasrallah

Imagining what went through the Sheikh’s mind as his world crumbled around him

At the end, events were attacking him at a dizzying pace. Scurrying around his bunker like a mouse, it felt like the walls were closing in all around. Hubris was quickly being followed by nemesis, and for the first time he could remember, doubts were creeping in. There was no turning back now – he could crush doubts like flies, but he knew they would soon reappear, the impossible thoughts that could be shared with nobody but himself. All he had left were these subterranean bunkers, but at least his engineers told him that they could withstand Israel’s bombs. Or that’s what he told himself, to retain a smidgen of courage.

Damn that dog Sinwar. Impatience was the worst of vices – all he had to do was wait. The Jews had been fighting among themselves for months and there had been no sign of them stopping anytime soon. The longer it continued, the better for the Arabs. But Sinwar couldn’t hold back, his violent urges and delusions of grandeur getting the better of him. He really thought he could conquer Israel! How Nasrallah laughed as he watched Hamas congratulate themselves for doing a fraction of the damage they could have done if they had waited until the timing was right and joined forces with Hezbollah.

He had to get involved. Arab solidarity demanded it! The Arab Street demanded it! Nasrallah knew it was a mistake, but he had no other choice: Arab solidarity demanded it! The Arab Street demanded it! Iran demanded it! Even those odd protesters in the West demanded it. Solidarity for Gaza, no matter the cost. And he didn’t anticipate that the cost would be so high. History guided him – Israel would lash out, civilians would die, the world would end the war, one way or the other. That’s what had always happened in the past, and there was no reason to think this time it would be any different. Hezbollah would recover from its losses and show the world that kicking the Jews out of their homes was no big deal: like cowards, they always ran at the first sign of trouble.

The war, though, dragged on and on. The world’s leaders cried “ceasefire now” and the protesters screamed “genocide,” but the negotiations went nowhere, and both Abu Yair and Abu Ibrahim held their ground. The hostages didn’t make much of a difference either, especially when their numbers decreased, and of course Sinwar couldn’t care less how many Gazans were dying. Still, Nasrallah told himself, it was a war of no choice.

He admitted it now: The Jews, despite their arcane disagreements and divisions, remained surprisingly unified, more a pride of lions than a spider’s web. Certainly, they were more united than the Arabs. He knew some called him the ‘trumpet’ for his verboseness, but he also knew they always listened. Even the Jews listened, analyzing his every word like he was the master of their fate. He had referred to the “spider’s web” in May 2000 in Bint Jbeil, just days after Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon: “Our brothers and beloved Palestinians, I tell you,” he had said, “Israel, which owns nuclear weapons and the strongest war aircraft in the region, is feebler than a spider’s web – I swear to God. The resistance has defeated the grand Israel. The resistance is conquering the great Israel.”

He felt it then and he knew it now: this had been his life’s great achievement. The first to expel the Zionists from Arab lands – how he missed the euphoria that followed this great achievement! Some called him the new Saladin, the unifier of the Arabs, the master of resistance, the righteous servant, they didn’t even care that he was Shia. It was a humiliation for the Jews – the IDF sneaking out like thieves in the night, locking the gate behind them as if they thought that would solve the problem. How stupid of them! The problem could never be solved, it was only the first stage. But now he knew it had been the end of the road.

He realized now, quietly, alone in his room listening to the strange humming of the bunker, that he had been wrong, and that much of what followed had been a disaster. First, the Second Lebanon War. “Had I known that there was one in a hundred chance that abducting soldiers would lead to war, I wouldn’t have done it,” he had said, and it was the truth! He wasn’t reckless like the dog Sinwar, he wasn’t in a rush. He had still been in his forties back then, a young man with plenty of time, or so he thought. Then, a few years later, the war in Syria, Assad the imbecile losing his grip and Hezbollah playing its part in helping him get back to the wheel. It was another war of no choice. He had been reluctant to send his men to oppress other Arabs, no matter if they were Sunni, and he knew they would never call him Saladin again after that. Without the Alawite, though, the entire project might have fallen apart.

Up in the overworld, he knew that many Syrians were celebrating the demise of his friends with sweets and fireworks. Even the Jews didn’t bother with all that. He knew that when his time came, when the impossible bombs eventually penetrated his bunker, that the celebrations would be greater than ever before, while the Jews would share a brief joke and go on drinking their coffees. But at Bint Jbeil he had been the hero of the Arabs, their Saladin, their defender of the faith. In the brief time he had left, he would always have Bint Jbeil. He didn’t talk about it much, but as a youth he had enjoyed football, and he still followed it when he could, watching the World Cup or Champions League from time to time. And he thought of football as he thought of his martyred friends, so many of them it was impossible to comprehend. He had bloviated after the Jews killed Fuad because he was confident Hezbollah could deal with the loss – replacing a single assassinated commander was never a problem. But not so many at once. A football team could replace a great striker, but not a great striker and defender and midfielder at the same time. And it was all his fault.

The pagers. How could he have been so stupid? “Israel no longer needs collaborators,” he had warned his people. “Its surveillance devices are in your pockets. If you are looking for the Israeli agent, look at the phone in your hands and those of your wives and children.” He had announced his plans to the enemy, without attention to the supply line. He knew they were all laughing at him, with their memes and their jokes and their prattle, and he knew he deserved it. He thought of his men, maimed and burned in the most terrible ways, all because of his awful, irredeemable mistake.

Still, he never imagined things would get this bad. He knew that the Jews would be coming for him too, when they thought they had the advantage they were relentless, and he knew that his engineers hadn’t been telling the truth when they told him he would be safe down here. His only comfort was the knowledge that the Jews fell prey to hubris like anyone else, even if F-35s and nuclear weapons could help stave off nemesis for now. He thought back to when his son Hadi was martyred back in 1997, and how his daughter Zainab had told the world that he hadn’t shed a single tear for him. The sacrifice had cemented his bond with the Shia of Lebanon, but now, close to the end, he was ashamed of himself. He certainly wasn’t crying for his brothers in the struggle, though. They had embarked on this path of their own free will, they knew they might have the privilege to fall on the road to Jerusalem. And he realized now that the road to Jerusalem awaited him too. He knew that this death would be so quick that he wouldn’t know it was happening, a merciful death he laughed to himself, a faint sound from far off followed by a rushing in of earth and debris, total annihilation, nothing left to chance, no silent assassin creeping about the bunker, any last thoughts left incomplete. He knew he had failed and he asked Allah for