The powerful leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, must be considered dead according to the Israelis, after yesterday’s fierce air raid on the organization’s headquarters in Beirut, targeting Nasrallah himself.

However, Hezbollah has not officially announced the death of its leader. In fact, a source close to the pro-Iranian Shiite organization said that the 64-year-old Nasrallah is fine.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency, which is controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, also reported that he was alive

At the same time, the IDF has not officially announced the death of Nasrallah in the strike in Beirut.

In contrast, he announced the death of Mohammed Ali Ismail, commander of Hezbollah’s missile unit in southern Lebanon, and his deputy, Hussein Ahmad Ismail.

At the same time, there are reports from Israeli media that his daughter, Zeinab Nasrallah, was also killed in the Beirut attack, although there has been no official confirmation from Hezbollah or the Lebanese authorities.

He always lives in hiding, with strong security measures.

Hassan Nasrallah was born on August 31, 1960 in a poor family of nine children. His family comes from the village of Bazouriye, in southern Lebanon. As a teenager, he studied theology in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq, but was forced to leave after the wave of persecution against the Shiite community unleashed by Iraq’s then-president Saddam Hussein. Returning to Lebanon he joined the Shia Amal movement but left when Israel invaded Lebanon in the summer of 1982, to join the newly formed Hezbollah.

He is married with five children and speaks Farsi fluently.

He always wears the black turban of the Sayyeds, the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, from whom he says he is descended.

In a rare interview he had stated that in his youth he played football and still admires Maradona.

For years now, the leader of Hezbollah has been living illegally, to avoid any Israeli blow.

sworn enemy of Israel, rarely appears in public after the war of 2006. His whereabouts are a closely guarded secret. However, he receives visitors, such as the leaders of Palestinian organizations that work with Hezbollah, and publishes photos with them.

Journalists and others who meet him say they are driven somewhere by Hezbollah members, in cars that have thick curtains and heavy security.

Nasrallah regularly delivers speeches that are broadcast live on television and are watched across the country.

He is considered the most powerful man in Lebanon, as he decides on peace or war, as the head of a heavily armed organization.

The man who made Hezbollah a political force and a mighty army

Nasrallah, 64, assumed leadership of Hezbollah in 1992, succeeding Abbas Mousavi, who was assassinated by Israel. In the following years, he turned the organization, which is financed and equipped by Iran, into a real political force, represented in parliament and the government.

At the same time, her arsenal also evolved. According to him, the organization has 100,000 fighters and possesses powerful weapons, such as precision missiles.

Hezbollah is the only organization that did not lay down its arms with the end of the civil war in Lebanon (1975-90), in the name of “resistance against Israel”. The Israeli army gradually withdrew from this country until in May 2000 it evacuated the southern areas as well, after 22 years of occupation.

With clashes between his men and the Israeli army, Hassan Nasrallah consolidated his power and gained respect in 1997 when his eldest son, Hadi, was killed in battle.

The 2006 war with Israel, which lasted 33 days, allowed him to demonstrate the strength of the movement, as his fighters resisted the Israeli army. That summer, 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, were killed, as well as 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers. Nasrallah had declared the end of the war, speaking of a “divine victory”.

In Lebanon, he found his back against the wall several times, when his party was blamed for the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 and then when his armed fighters temporarily took control of the capital in May 2008.

Nevertheless, he increased his influence not only in Lebanon but also in the wider region.

In 2013, it announced that Hezbollah had intervened militarily in neighboring Syria to support the regime of Bashar al-Assad, after the civil war that broke out in 2011. As it enjoys the full confidence of the Iranian leadership, it trains and supports movements close to Tehran in the region .

Hezbollah is today the “jewel in the crown” of Iran’s allies in the region who form the so-called “axis of resistance” that includes several armed organizations in Iraq, the Houthi rebels of Yemen and the Palestinian Hamas.

Since the start of the Gaza war between Hamas and Israel, Hassan Nasrallah has opened a front in Lebanon to support his Palestinian allies but at the same time has tried to avoid a full-scale war with Israel.