French far-right leader Marine Le Pen denied violating any rules as she and her National Rally party and two dozen others went on trial on Monday, accused of embezzling European Parliament funds, in a case that has the potential to derail her political ambitions.

Arriving at the court in Paris, Le Pen said, “we have not violated any political and regulatory rules of the European Parliament” and vowed to present “extremely serious and extremely solid arguments″ in the trial.”

The nine-week trial will be closely watched by Le Pen’s political rivals as she is a strong contender in the race to succeed Emmanuel Macron when the next presidential election takes place in 2027.

It comes as a new government dominated by centrists and conservatives just came into office in the wake of June-July legislative elections. Some observers expect the trial could prevent National Rally lawmakers, including Le Pen herself, from fully playing their opposition role in Parliament as they would be busy focusing on the party’s defense.

Since stepping down as party leader three years ago, Le Pen has sought to position herself as a mainstream candidate capable of appealing to a broader electorate. Her efforts have paid off, with the party making significant gains in recent elections at both the European and national levels. But a guilty verdict could seriously undermine her bid to take the Elysee.

The National Rally and 27 of its top officials are accused of having used money destined for EU parliamentary aides to pay staff who instead did political work for the party between 2004 and 2016, in violation of the 27-nation bloc’s regulations. The National Rally was called National Front at the time.

Le Pen, whose party has softened its anti-EU stance in recent years, denies wrongdoing and claims the case is politically driven.

“Parliamentary assistants do not work for the Parliament. They are political assistants to elected officials, political by definition,” she argued in her defense. “You ask me if I can define the tasks I assigned to my assistants; it depends on each person’s skills. Some wrote speeches for me, and some handled logistics and coordination.”

If found guilty, Le Pen and her co-defendants could face up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to 1 million euros ($1.1 million) each. Additional penalties, such as the loss of civil rights or ineligibility to run for office, could also be imposed, a scenario that could hamper, or even destroy, Le Pen’s goal to mount another presidential bid after Macron’s term ends. Le Pen was runner-up to Macron in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections.

She served as party president from 2011 to 2021 and now heads the group of RN lawmakers at the French National Assembly.

Despite her denial, her party has already paid back 1 million to the European Parliament, the Parliament’s lawyer Patrick Maisonneuve said. Of that amount, 330,000 euros were directly linked to Marine Le Pen’s alleged misuse of funds.

A longstanding controversy

The legal proceedings stem from a 2015 alert raised by Martin Schulz, then-president of the European Parliament, to French authorities about possible fraudulent use of European funds by members of the National Front.

Schulz also referred the case to the European Anti-Fraud Office, which launched a separate probe into the matter.

The European Parliament’s suspicions were further heightened when a 2015 organizational chart showed that 16 European lawmakers and 20 parliamentary assistants held official positions within the party – roles unrelated to their supposed duties as EU parliamentary staff.

A subsequent investigation found that some assistants were contractually linked to different MEPs than the ones they were actually working for, suggesting a scheme to divert European funds to pay party employees in France.

Alexandre Varault, a spokesperson for the National Rally who was elected to the European Parliament in June, told The Associated Press that Le Pen will attend the first day of the trial, adding that he hopes for the acquittal of all the defendants.

Misuse of public funds alleged

Investigating judges concluded that Le Pen, as party leader, orchestrated the allocation of parliamentary assistance budgets and instructed MEPs to hire individuals holding party positions. These individuals were presented as EU parliamentary assistants, but in reality, were allegedly working for the National Rally in various capacities.

The European Parliament’s legal team is seeking 2.7 million euros in compensation for financial and reputational damages. This figure corresponds to the 3.7 million euros allegedly defrauded through the scheme, minus the 1 million euros already paid back.

During the 2014 European elections, the National Front won a record 24 MEP seats, finishing first with 24.8% of the vote, ahead of the center-right and the Socialists. This surge resulted in a substantial financial windfall for the party, which faced severe financial problems at the time.

An audit of the party’s accounts between 2013 and 2016 revealed that it was running a deficit of 9.1 million euros by the end of 2016. Yet, the party still had a cash balance of 1.7 million euros and had lent 1 million euros to Le Pen’s 2017 presidential campaign, while also holding 87,000 euros in loans to Cotelec, its funding association.

At the time, the party was also indebted to a Russian bank for 9.4 million euros, a loan taken out in 2014 for 6 million euros.

Suspected systemic practice

The investigation uncovered many irregularities involving prominent party members.

Thierry Légier, the long-time bodyguard of Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie, was listed as his parliamentary assistant. But his resume did not reference this role, and he made no mention of it in his 2012 autobiography. Légier admitted during the investigation that he was not interviewed and signed his employment contract without fully understanding his official role.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, who led the National Front from 1972 to 2011, will not appear in court alongside his former colleagues due to health concerns. Now 96, he was deemed unfit to testify by a court in June. He has 11 prior convictions, including for violence against a public official and hate speech.

He has denied wrongdoing during his time as party leader, stating that the “pool” of assistants was common knowledge. “I did not choose which assistants were assigned to me. That was decided by Marine Le Pen and others. I only signed the contracts,” he said.

Aboard an aging Boeing 707, thousands of feet above the Red Sea, I don a set of high-tech 3D goggles and stare at the small TV monitor recessed in a bank of retro dials and switches.

Saudi Arabia’s amber desert slides by to my right, Egypt’s coast to my left, then a monstrous F35 fighter jet fills the tiny screen.

I am with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) – the first foreign journalist to be taken on a combat mission more than a thousand miles from Israel aboard a fighter jet refuel tanker. 

Israel has been engaged in an escalating war since Hamas’ October 7 attack last year – not just in Gaza, but in Lebanon with Hezbollah, which began attacking Israel October 8; in Yemen with the Houthis, who have launched long-range attacks at Israel’s main population centers; even in the Syrian and Iranian capitals.

Israel’s response to those attacks have killed nearly 42,000 in Gaza and more than 1,000 in Lebanon. Deadly bombing campaigns in Yemen have destroyed critical infrastructure in a war-torn country that has for years been one of the worst humanitarian cases in the world.

Israel’s invitation to join this mission came with no detail about the plane’s destination. As I climb the plane’s rickety steps, I have no idea where I am going or what this IDF flight will reveal about military operations.

Israeli Air Force security regulations are so tight neither I nor Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, the IDF spokesman accompanying me, are allowed to bring our cellphones aboard.  Neither am I allowed to bring a camera or photojournalist.

Except for the cockpit, I have access to the more than 50-year-old former commercial airliner, and its commanders, under the condition that they not be named.

Even without a camera, this access is the only up-close opportunity to scrutinize and speak with those on the front lines of Israel’s several-front war.

In its new guise as an Israeli tanker, signs remain of the aircraft’s past life, a reminder of its age. The overhead call buttons depict a woman – sexism long since banished from our skies.

In all other ways, the aircraft is unrecognizable from its heyday carrying fare-paying passengers. The seats are stripped out, its long body fitted with huge, pressurized fuel tanks, essential for Israel to project its firepower.

Flying 1,200 miles (1,500 kilometers), the refueling mission I discover I am joining is the IDF’s longest-range combat mission since a 1985 raid on Tunis.

Shoshani reminds me of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s words to the United Nations General Assembly the day before. “There is no place … that the long arm of Israel cannot reach,” Netanyahu said, referring to Iran and the wider Middle East.

For more than an hour and half, Israeli F35 fighter jets, each worth more than $100 million, close in behind the 707 tanker, nudging toward its trailing fuel pipe.

The squadron commander, a 15-year refueling veteran, stares through his 3D goggles, merging two camera images. He jockeys the two long levers beside his seat and steers the nozzle toward the gas-hungry fighter jet’s fuel port.

No part of this is easy, he tells me. The biggest challenge, he says, is making sure they load enough fuel, and timing the mission to the minute, so the F35s arrive on target with a full tank at precisely the moment their intelligence tells them it’s the best time to attack.

When he shows me a map of the mission, I realize we are on the way to Hodeidah Port in Yemen, controlled by Houthi rebels, backed by Iran.

Shoshani tells me the reason for this mission, is that over the past two weeks the Houthis have fired three long-range missiles, all intercepted near Tel Aviv.

Starting with attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, the Houthis say they are acting out of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Their flag bears the phrases: “Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews.” But experts say the popular fight in the name of Gaza’s Palestinians has also helped the group build support in Yemen and gain international acclaim.

The Houthis claim that their most recent attack, launched late Saturday, targeted Netanyahu as he arrived back from New York at Ben Gurion International Airport just outside Tel Aviv.

An impact in this area could have caused huge civilian casualties and is the reason why, 16 hours later, this mission was deployed.

As the last of the F35s decouple from the fuel feed, the squadron commander visibly eases in his seat, pushes back his goggles, and stretches his shoulders. Each jet is on the nozzle for about 3 minutes, requiring intense focus.

We begin circling, waiting for fighter pilots to deliver their payloads. Any attack from the ground could cost them vital fuel as they try to evade being shot down and require a refill to get back to base.

Twenty minutes later we’re headed north, no top-ups needed.

I ask the lead pilot on the tanker, a reservist veteran aviator, about the challenges of such a mission and his feelings when civilians are killed. We don’t want to kill civilians, he tells me, and we use all the intelligence we have to avoid it.

I point to the high death tolls in Gaza and Lebanon from Air Force strikes. We are targeting the Houthis, he tells me, they are firing missiles at our civilians, endangering them.

By the time we land, safely back in southern Israel, news of the strike is out. The Houthi TV channel is showing images of huge plumes of fire and smoke from Hodeidah Port.

The IDF says they targeted “power plants and a seaport in the areas of Ras Issa and Hodeidah,” adding the Houthis use the port to “transfer Iranian weapons to the region, and supplies for military needs, and thus also oil.”

According to Houthi officials, the F35s I saw being refueled struck a power station and fuel store in Hodeidah, killing a port official and three engineers.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi released a statement after the strike: “We know how to reach very far, we know how to reach even farther, and we know how to strike there with precision.”

“This is not a message; it is an action. An action that carries a message with it,” Halevi said.

On the flight, Shoshani told me the message was for Iran too, a warning that while Israel is bracing for retaliatory strikes from Hezbollah in Lebanon, they want the group’s sponsor, Iran, to stay out of the fight.

This embed wasn’t just an object lesson in the lengths Israel will go to to punish its enemies, but real-time evidence that dormant adversaries are emerging from the shadows, and Israel’s war to thwart them is becoming regional.

The former head of a local police station in Seoul has been sentenced to three years in jail over a deadly 2022 Halloween crowd crush, making him the highest-ranking law enforcement official to be held criminally liable over the disaster.

Almost 160 people died in the crowd crush at the trendy Itaewon nightlife district on October 29 that year, in what was one of South Korea’s deadliest disasters that left the nation reeling.

Lee Im-jae, former chief of the Yongsan police station, which oversees safety in Itaewon, is one of multiple officers to be prosecuted for failing to adequately prepare for the huge Halloween crowds.

Seoul Western District Court said Monday it found Lee and two other former Yongsan police officers guilty of neglecting their duties, which resulted in deaths and injuries, despite signs that “the danger of large-scale casualties” was foreseeable.

Lee was also found guilty of failing to put in place sufficient crowd control and dispatch intelligence officials to the site. The court also found Lee delayed in reacting to the disaster. He was cleared of perjury.

He is the most senior police officer to be convicted, after a court sentenced an intelligence officer to 18 months’ jail while imposing shorter, suspended sentences on his two subordinates on charges of destroying evidence earlier this year.

In January, Seoul’s former police chief was indicted for negligence in connection with the tragedy. He has also been on trial and is awaiting a verdict.

Itaewon, home to some of Seoul’s popular restaurants and bars, had hosted Halloween celebrations for years.

According to police emergency call logs on the day of the incident, multiple calls from members of the public were made about overcrowding as early as four hours before the situation gravely worsened.

Four police dispatches were sent out to Itaewon. But crowds had already swelled and the streets became so packed that partygoers were unable to move.

Some slipped below the feet of others, unable to breathe. Most who died that night were young South Koreans – largely in their teens and early 20s.

Public outrage turned toward South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and his government at the time, with critics decrying the lack of accountability.

Last year, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced a slew of new measures “to ensure a safe Halloween” – including a new CCTV system to monitor crowd numbers.

Other places in Asia also scrambled to learn from Seoul’s mistake and took measures to avoid the repeat of the tragedy.

In Japan, authorities are encouraged young people last year to avoid popular areas in the nightlife district of Shibuya, a popular gathering spot on Halloween night.

In the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China, operators of an underground metro service banned “scary makeup and dressing” on trains to “prevent any potential panic.”

Days of heavy monsoon rains in Nepal have triggered widespread flooding and landslides across the Himalayan nation, killing almost 200 people and causing widespread destruction.

Images from the capital show much of southern Kathmandu and nearby cities underwater or buried in thick mud as incessant torrential rains caused major rivers to swell far above danger levels.

The floods and landslides have destroyed hundreds of homes, cut off highways, and downed power lines, which hit just months after the country experienced deadly record rainfall and flash flooding that scientists say has intensified as a result of the climate crisis.

Search and rescue teams have struggled to reach residents buried under their homes or trapped by flooding in remote areas.

In hard-hit Lalitpur, south of Kathmandu, images showed the Nepal Armed Police Force using zip lines to traverse a flooded river, while elsewhere rescue teams could be seen digging with their bare hands to free residents buried under mud and rubble, or using boats and helicopters to reach people stranded on rooftops.

More than 3,700 people have been rescued, police said, but authorities believe the death toll will rise as rescue teams reach more remote and cut off areas.

Floods and damage from landslides have also affected much of the central and eastern parts of the country.

The bodies of 16 people were recovered Sunday from two buses that had been traveling along a key road out of Kathmandu when they were hit by a huge landslide, according to Reuters. One image showed a tourist bus partially submerged in mud with its windshield smashed in.

Video posted by Nepal Police shows the moment a two-year-old boy was rescued from his collapsed house in Bhimeshwor, Dolakha district, following a landslide. According to police, the boy’s parents and brother died.

Parts of the capital reported rain up to 322.2 millimeters (12.7 inches), pushing the level of its main Bagmati river up 2.2 meters (7 feet) past the danger mark, Reuters reported.

Further west of the capital, one international student described how “water was rushing through the streets in Pokhara,” the country’s second most populous city and a popular tourist destination known as a gateway for trekking in the Himalayas.

On Sunday, rains had eased in several areas allowing a major clean-up operation to begin. However, Kathmandu remained cut off with three highways into the city blocked by landslides, Associated Press reported. Schools have also closed for three days, according to Reuters.

Nepal is no stranger to heavy annual monsoon rains, but experts say this year was particularly bad.

“I’ve never before seen flooding on this scale in Kathmandu,” said Arun Bhakta Shrestha, the environmental risks expert at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), in a statement.

Experts there said in a statement the impacts of the weekend’s extreme rainfall in Nepal have been exacerbated by rampant development and urbanization, including unplanned construction on floodplains and poor drainage.

They have called on the government and city planners to increase funding for underground stormwater and sewage systems and the restoration of wetlands to help cities absorb more water.

South Asia is home to about a quarter of the world’s population and is among the most vulnerable to the impacts of the human-caused climate crisis and its intensification of extreme weather. Recent studies have shown that Asia will only become more vulnerable to extreme rain and flooding by 2030.

China has taken a step forward in its ambitious plan to land astronauts on the moon by 2030 – unveiling the specially designed spacesuit its crew will don for what’s expected to be a landmark mission in the country’s space program.

The new red-and-white suit – revealed by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) over the weekend – is made to withstand the moon’s extreme temperatures, as well as radiation and dust, while allowing astronauts physical flexibility to perform tasks on the lunar surface, according to state media.

The moon-landing suit is equipped with a built-in long and short-range camera, an operations console, and a glare-proof helmet visor, according to a video shared by state broadcaster CCTV, which featured well-known Chinese astronauts Zhai Zhigang and Wang Yaping demonstrating how astronauts wearing the suit can bend and climb a ladder.

The new technology has caught international attention.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared a post on the platform X featuring the CCTV video and his own caption.

“Meanwhile, back in America, the [Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)] is smothering the national space program in kafkaesque paperwork!” he wrote, in an apparent reference to the perceived speed with which China has bolstered its space program relative to the US.

SpaceX’s fortunes – and Musk’s personal wealth – have been boosted in recent years by huge government contracts as NASA has sought to tap into the private sector on space exploration and logistics.

Space leader

China’s reveal of the moon-landing spacesuit comes as the country has mounted a significant effort to establish itself a major player in space – a domain that nations, including the United States, are increasingly looking to not only for scientific benefit, but also with an eye to resources and national security.

The China National Space Administration has in recent years carried out a series of increasingly complex robotic lunar missions, including the first-ever return of lunar samples from the far side of the moon earlier this year. It has been angling to become the second country to land astronauts on the moon, saying its first crewed mission will take place “by 2030.”

The US, which has not sent astronauts to the moon since 1972, is also planning to send a crew this decade, though it has delayed its initial timeline for its Artemis III mission. That mission will not take off until at least September 2026, NASA said earlier this year. The agency revealed a protoype of its Artemis III spacesuit prototype, the AxEMU, in 2023.

China’s new spacesuit was hailed across state media as a major step forward in the country’s crewed mission timeline, with experts noting the need for specifically formulated suit for lunar conditions versus those used in spacewalks by astronauts at China’s Tiangong orbital space station.

Thanks to its thin exosphere, the moon is an unforgiving place, exposed to both the sun’s rays and the cold of space. Temperatures near the Moon’s equator, for example, can spike to 250°F (121°C) in the day and then plunge at night to -208°F (-133°C), according to NASA.

“Unlike low-Earth orbit missions, astronauts will be in a harsh natural lunar environment during lunar extravehicular activities. Complex environmental factors such as high vacuum and low gravity, lunar dust and lunar soil, complex lunar surface terrain, high and low temperatures, and strong radiation will have a significant impact on work and protection,” Wu Zhiqiang, deputy chief designer of astronaut systems at the China Astronaut Research and Training Center, told state broadcaster CCTV.

Others also hailed the aesthetics of the suit, with state media describing the red stripes on its upper limbs are inspired by ribbons from the “flying apsaras,” or deities that appear in ancient art in western China’s Dunhuang city, while those on its lower limbs resembling “rocket launch flames.”

Another designer, Wang Chunhui, told state media the suit’s proportions would make the astronauts “look more spirited and majestic” and “make us Chinese look strong and beautiful when we step on the moon.”

Earlier this year, Chinese officials released the name of the spacecraft for the crewed lunar mission – with the spaceship dubbed Mengzhou, or Dream Vessel, the lander, Lanyue, or Embracing the Moon.

The mission is designed as part of a broader set of lunar ambitions, which include China’s plans to establish an international lunar research station at the moon’s south pole by 2040.

The Freedom Party secured the first far-right national parliamentary election victory in post-World War II Austria on Sunday, finishing ahead of the governing conservatives after tapping into anxieties about immigration, inflation, Ukraine and other issues. But its chances of governing were unclear.

Preliminary official results showed the Freedom Party finishing first with 29.2% of the vote and Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party was second with 26.5%. The center-left Social Democrats were in third place with 21%. The outgoing government – a coalition of Nehammer’s party and the environmentalist Greens – lost its majority in the lower house of parliament.

Herbert Kickl, a former interior minister and longtime campaign strategist who has led the Freedom Party since 2021, wants to be chancellor.

But to become Austria’s new leader, he would need a coalition partner to command a parliamentary majority. Rivals have said they won’t work with Kickl in government.

The far right has benefited from frustration over high inflation, the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic. It has also built on worries about migration.

In its election program, titled “Fortress Austria,” the Freedom Party calls for “remigration of uninvited foreigners,” for achieving a more “homogeneous” nation by tightly controlling borders and suspending the right to asylum via an emergency law.

The Freedom Party also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of Western military aid to Ukraine and wants to bow out of the European Sky Shield Initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany. Kickl has criticized “elites” in Brussels and called for some powers to be brought back from the European Union to Austria.

“We don’t need to change our position, because we have always said that we’re ready to lead a government, we’re ready to push forward this change in Austria side by side with the people,” Kickl said in an appearance alongside other party leaders on ORF public television. “The other parties should ask themselves where they stand on democracy,” he added, arguing that they should “sleep on the result.”

Nehammer said it was “bitter” that his party missed out on first place, but noted he brought it back from lower poll ratings. He has often said he won’t form a coalition with Kickl and said that “what I said before the election, I also say after the election.”

More than 6.3 million people were eligible to vote for the new parliament in Austria, an EU member that has a policy of military neutrality.

Kickl has achieved a turnaround since Austria’s last parliamentary election in 2019. In June, the Freedom Party narrowly won a nationwide vote for the first time in the European Parliament election, which also brought gains for other European far-right parties.

Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, whose party dominates the Netherlands’ new government, congratulated the Freedom Party on social network X Sunday. So did Alice Weidel, a co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party.

The Freedom Party is a long-established force but Sunday’s result was its best yet in a national parliamentary election, beating the 26.9% it scored in 1999.

In 2019, its support slumped to 16.2% after a scandal brought down a government in which it was the junior partner. Then-vice chancellor and Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache resigned following the publication of a secretly recorded video in which he appeared to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.

The leader of the Social Democrats, a party that led many of Austria’s post-World War II governments, positioned himself as the polar opposite to Kickl. Andreas Babler ruled out governing with the far right and labeled Kickl “a threat to democracy.”

While the Freedom Party has recovered, the popularity of Nehammer’s People’s Party declined sharply compared with 2019. Support for the Greens, their coalition partner, also dropped to 8%.

During the election campaign, Nehammer portrayed his party, which has taken a tough line on immigration in recent years, as “the strong center” that would guarantee stability amid multiple crises.

But crises ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and resulting rising energy prices and inflation also cost it support. The government also angered many Austrians in 2022 with a short-lived coronavirus vaccine mandate, the first in Europe.

But the recent flooding caused by Storm Boris that hit Austria and other countries may have helped Nehammer slightly narrow the gap as a crisis manager.

The People’s Party is the far right’s only way into government, and now holds the key to forming any administration.

Nehammer repeatedly excluded joining a government led by Kickl, describing him as a “security risk” for the country, but didn’t rule out a coalition with the Freedom Party itself — which would imply Kickl renouncing a position in government. But that looks very unlikely with the Freedom Party in first place.

The alternative would be an alliance between the People’s Party and the Social Democrats — with or without the liberal Neos, who took 9% of the vote.

A final official result will be published later in the week after a small number of remaining postal ballots have been counted, but those won’t change the outcome substantially.

About 300 protesters gathered outside the parliament building in Vienna Sunday evening, holding placards with slogans including “Kickl is a Nazi.”

An eerie calm fell over the Lebanese capital in the hours after Israeli warplanes pummelled its southern suburbs, Hezbollah’s seat of power where hundreds of thousands of civilians live.

The Iran-backed group’s long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed on Friday in a massive bombardment that was the first of the nearly 48 hours of incessant airstrikes. Scores of top commanders and officials were killed alongside him as well as in the attacks that followed. Many civilians are also believed to have been killed.

More than 24 hours after Nasrallah’s body was recovered from the deep pit left behind by the heavy bombs that killed him, a funeral for the militant leader is yet to be scheduled – highly unusual in Islamic tradition where the dead receive a quick burial.

The group is also yet to appoint a new secretary general, defying long-held expectations that the group would rapidly unfurl a succession plan after Nasrallah’s death.

This has added to a pervading sense that Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group which for decades dominated the country’s politics, had swiftly become a ghost organization. In one fell swoop, Israel seemed to remove not just the group’s leadership, but perhaps also all its contingency plans, further evidence of the profound scope of Israel’s infiltration of the group’s ranks.

“It’s fabricated. There’s no proof that he’s dead,” said Hassan, a Hezbollah supporter leaning on a parked moped, his eyes glassy with tears. “He’s going to appear soon and he’s going to surprise us.”

Abu Mohamad, a middle-aged Shia man displaced from southern Lebanon to a sidewalk in central Beirut, said, “It doesn’t matter if he’s alive or dead, because a leader like Nasrallah lives in us always,” he said. “We will continue on the path he set, and we will return to our homes.”

Nasrallah inspired strong feelings in the Lebanese – revered and reviled in equal measure. But Lebanese across the divide are reeling from the tectonic shifts to the country’s political landscape, and the humanitarian devastation that it has wreaked.

Lebanese authorities believe just under 1,100 people have been killed and around 1 million have been displaced by Israel’s intensified bombardment campaign since it began last Monday. A response, Israel says, to the rocket attacks from Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas attacked on October 7, and which have forced 60,000 people from their homes in northern Israel.

Lebanon’s border villages have also been emptied of around 100,000 villagers by Israeli attacks in turn. Still, Hezbollah has vowed to keep up its border rocket fire until the end of Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

Now, large parts of the densely populated southern suburbs have been devastated. The displaced have taken to the relatively affluent, and still untouched, western parts of the capital where they have camped out on sidewalks, parks, schools, churches and mosques.

Mattresses and blankets for displaced families cover the Corniche, the city’s seaside boardwalk, known for its views of the eastern Mediterranean against the backdrop of verdant green mountains.

When Israeli bombs hit the south of the capital on Friday, the streets of west Beirut filled with people throughout the night. Some of the displaced were chatting on the curb, a few lay asleep on benches. Women cradled sleeping babies and toddlers. Children wandered the streets in their pajamas, snaking aimlessly through double parked cars.

On the city’s commercial Hamra street, a crowd outside an abandoned building forced the traffic to a near stop. A man knocked down the iron gate, allowing a flood of displaced people in for shelter.

It was 3 o’clock in the morning. Nasrallah had only recently been assassinated – though not yet confirmed by his group – and many of his supporters were trying to put on a brave face.

“We’re ok! I’m sure our home is ok. There’s nothing to worry about,” one woman in her early 60s told a group of people around her.

Days later, the sense of dread is more palpable. Many of the country’s displaced have lost loved ones but can barely find the time to grieve as they scramble for shelter and food. Those not yet personally impacted by the bombardment must contend with the unknown territory into which the death of Nasrallah and his cadre of senior leaders has thrust the country.

“The assassination of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah came to open a wound in the heart of the Lebanese,” the Patriarch of the Maronite Church, Bechara Boutros al-Rahi said at Sunday Mass.

Rahi has long been one of Hezbollah’s most prominent critics. In January he implicitly criticized Hezbollah for dragging the south of Lebanon into conflict with its cross-border rocket and drone attacks on Israel. Hezbollah has repeatedly vowed not to cease fire on its southern border until the end of Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza.

Rahi had also condemned “the culture of death that has brought nothing but imaginary victories and shameful defeats to our country.”

Nasrallah’s main Sunni foes have also condemned the assassination. “The assassination of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has brought Lebanon and the region to a new phase of violence. It was a cowardly act that we condemn in every way,” Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Saad Hariri said in a post on X.

“We disagreed a lot with the late (Nasrallah) and with his party, and we met infrequently. However Lebanon serves as a tent for all, and in these extremely challenging times, our unity and our solidarity remains foundational,” Hariri continued.

Lebanon’s complex confessional power-sharing structure has mean that divisions frequently spark internal strife, political paralysis and even violence. But Israel, technically classified in Lebanon as an “enemy state,” has historically brought the fragmented country together, albeit temporarily.

Meanwhile, civilians wandering the streets for safety have borne the cost of this new war.
At central Martyr’s Square in central Beirut, against the backdrop of a poster that read in big letters “Beirut will not die” barefoot children were smeared in black dirt and families slept on straw mats. An elderly woman who fled her neighbourhood, leaving all possessions behind, was selling tissue boxes.

“We sleep on sidewalks because we have no choice,” said Umm Fawzi, from southern Beirut. “I swear that we fled only with the clothes on our back. There was not a living soul left in the neighborhood.”

Killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was a step toward changing “the balance of power in the region for years to come,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Saturday.

Israel’s leader sees an opportunity opening up for a fundamental reconfiguration of power in Middle East and he may assume that Hezbollah are mortally wounded. Total victory, however, is elusive, and those who get what they wish for often live to regret it.

Since Sept 17, Israel has dealt the Iran-backed militant group one body blow after another in Lebanon — first the pager and walkie talkie blasts, then a massive air strike on southern Beirut which killed senior commander Ibrahim Aqil (along with at least two dozen civilians), followed three days later by the start of a brutal bombing campaign. By Friday evening – when Nasrallah was killed in a bombing that flattened multiple buildings – Hizballah’s senior leadership had been almost totally eliminated.

Yet recent history offers only bitter lessons for Israeli leaders — and others — who entertain grand ambitions for tectonic changes in Lebanon, and in the Middle East in general.

In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon with the goal of crushing the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Beyond that, it hoped to establish a malleable Christian-dominated government in Beirut and to drive Syrian forces out of the country.

It failed at all three. Yes, Palestinian armed groups in Lebanon were compelled to leave the country under an American-brokered deal that sent them into exile in Tunisia, Yemen and elsewhere. But the goal of quashing Palestinian national aspirations along with the PLO failed. Five years later, the First Palestinian Intifada, or uprising,broke out in Gaza and spread to the West Bank. Today the Palestinians are as adamant and restive as they’ve ever been in their rejection of Israeli occupation.

Israel’s main ally in Lebanon at the time of the invasion was Bashir Al-Gemayel, a Maronite Christian militia leader who was elected by parliament, but before he took office was assassinated in a massive blast in east Beirut. His brother, Amin, replaced him, and under his leadership and with active American involvement and encouragement in May 1983 Lebanon and Israel signed an agreement for the establishment of normal bilateral relations. In the face of intense opposition, the government fell the following February and soon the agreement was abrogated.

The US, which had deployed troops to Beirut after the September 1982 Sabra-Shatila massacres, pulled out after its embassy was twice bombed, along with the US marines and French army barracks in October 1983.

The Lebanese civil war re-erupted and raged on more than six years.

Syrian forces, which had entered Lebanon in 1976 as a “deterrence force” under an Arab League mandate, didn’t leave until 2005 after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri.

Perhaps the most significant outcome of the 1982 Israeli invasion was the birth of Hezbollah, which went on to wage a relentless guerrilla war that compelled Israel to unilaterally withdraw from south Lebanon – significantly the first and only time an Arab military force successfully pushed Israel to retreat from Arab land. This new group, with Iran’s help, proved to be far more lethal and effective than the Palestinian militants Israel had successfully driven out.

Hezbollah went on to fight Israel to a standstill in the 2006 war, and in the following years grew only stronger, with significant Iranian help.

Today Hezbollah is crippled and in disarray, and clearly infiltrated by Israeli intelligence – but still, it would be premature to write its epitaph.

Beyond Lebanon and Israel, there is the example of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, a lesson in the wages of unfettered hubris. As the Iraqi army crumbled and US troops raced to Baghdad, the George W. Bush administration entertained fantasies that the fall of Saddam Hussein would lead to the toppling of regimes in Tehran and Damascus, and ignite a flowering of liberal democracies across the region.

Instead the US occupation of Iraq descended into a blood bath of sectarian violence, in which the US paid dearly in blood and treasure, the people of Iraq even more. The killing of Saddam Hussain allowed Iran to spread its influence to the very heart of the political establishment in Baghdad. Al-Qaeda, shattered by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, was reborn in Iraq’s Sunni triangle, and eventually morphed into the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

As I write this, I see smoke rising from across Beirut’s battered southern suburbs and recall the words of then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who, during the 2006 Israel-Hizballah war, said all the bloodshed and destruction we were witnessing then were “the birth pangs of the new Middle East.”

Beware of those who promise a new dawn, the birth of a new Middle East, a new balance of power in the region. Lebanon is a microcosm of all that can go wrong. It’s the land of unintended consequences.

Hezbollah is believed to be the most heavily armed non-state group in the world. Backed by Iran and based in the eastern Mediterranean country of Lebanon, the Shiite Islamist group has been engaged in confrontations with Israeli forces on Lebanon’s southern border since October 8.

Hezbollah first fired at Israel to protest the war in Gaza, demanding a ceasefire there as a condition to end its attacks. Cross-border hostilities have since escalated, culminating in the death of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an Israeli strike on the Lebanese capital Beirut.

The cross-border conflict and recent developments have raised the specter of a regional conflagration and amplified intense diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions. Though no match for Israel’s military might, Hezbollah’s increasingly sophisticated arsenal has the potential to inflict significant damage on Israel.

Israel would also have to contend with Hezbollah’s strategic depth. The group is part of an Iran-led axis of militants spanning Yemen, Syria, Gaza and Iraq. Some of these groups have increased coordination significantly since October, when Israel launched a war in Gaza after Hamas-led militants attacked the country. This axis is known in Israel as the “ring of fire.”

For nearly a year, Hezbollah’s partners in the region have been engaged in a simmering conflict with Israel and its allies. Yemen’s Houthis have sporadically fired at vessels in the Red Sea, an artery of global trade, as well as on Israel. Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of hardline Shiite factions, has also launched attacks on US positions in that country. The axis has conditioned the cessation of those hostilities on a ceasefire in Gaza, rebranding themselves as a “supportive front” for Palestinians in Gaza, as described by a senior Hezbollah leader.

In September, Israel stepped up its direct confrontation with Hezbollah. In back-to-back attacks, hundreds of Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies exploded, killing at least 37 people and injuring thousands, before an Israeli airstrike on Beirut killed a senior Hezbollah commander. In response, Hezbollah has vowed “a battle without limits.”

Following the twin communications attacks, Hezbollah launched what it said was a ballistic missile at Israel, targeting the headquarters of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad. It is believed to be the first ballistic missile to be launched by militant group toward Israel. The strike, which was intercepted, reached near the bustling city of Tel Aviv.

Hezbollah’s fighting force emerged from the rubble of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Beirut. At the time, it was a rag-tag group of Islamist fighters supported by Iran’s fledgling Islamic Republic. This was followed by a meteoric rise in the group’s military and political might. In 2000, its guerrilla fighters forced Israeli forces to withdraw from south Lebanon, ending a more-than-20-year occupation. In 2006, it survived a 34-day war with Israel that wreaked havoc on Lebanon.

During Syria’s uprising-turned-civil war in the 2010s, it fought on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as he brutally quashed armed opposition forces and inflicted a huge civilian death toll. As it fought in the trenches of that nearly decade-long war, Hezbollah became seasoned in urban warfare and solidified its alliances with other Iran-backed groups fighting in Syria. It also cleared a vital supply route for weapons between Iran and Lebanon, via its partners in Iraq and Syria, further bolstering its arsenal.

Hezbollah’s military capabilities have notably grown since its last war with Israel in 2006. Military analysts estimate Hezbollah to have between 30,000 and 50,000 troops, but earlier this year its leader Nasrallah claimed it has more than 100,000 fighters and reservists. The group is also believed to possess between 120,000 and 200,000 rockets and missiles.

Experts say the group’s biggest military asset is the long-range ballistic missile, of which it is estimated to have thousands, including 1,500 precision missiles with ranges of 250–300 kilometers (155–186 miles).

Throughout its decades-long conflict with Israel, Hezbollah has been engaged in asymmetric warfare. It has sought to grow its political and military might, while seeking to establish deterrence despite Israel’s military superiority.

But Hezbollah threads the needle carefully. Provoking Israel’s full firepower could significantly degrade the group’s capabilities, setting it back years – if not decades – and destroying large parts of Lebanon, which has buckled under the weight of its years-long financial crisis.

As the confrontations at the border continue, Hezbollah has sought, with some success, to undermine Israel’s vaunted missile defense system known as the Iron Dome. It has tried to do so by attacking its platforms and overwhelming it with swarms of drones and short-range missiles in order to open a path for other projectiles to reach deeper into Israeli territory.

The full extent of Hezbollah’s arsenal is not clear. In response to Israel’s twin wireless device attacks, Hezbollah fired a barrage of missiles across the border into northern Israel, and said it hit an air base with Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles – a longer-range weapon not known to have been used so far in nearly a year of conflict.

Hezbollah’s chances of survival in an all-out war with Israel is hinged on whether or not it can outsmart these systems which have in recent months intercepted thousands of airborne weapons from Iran, Gaza and Lebanon.

Because of Hezbollah’s growing power, a possible all-out war between Israel and Lebanon would thrust the Middle East into uncharted waters. The diplomatic effort to prevent it is likely to continue at a breathless pace.

The last 48 hours in the Middle East – in which Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and continued to bombard the Iran-backed group across Lebanon – have once more ratcheted up fears that this long-running conflict could spiral into a wider regional war.

Nasrallah’s killing, in a huge set of Israeli airstrikes on his underground headquarters in Beirut on Friday, marks a significant escalation in the conflict between Israel and the Lebanon-based militant group, which has been firing on Israel since the start of its war against Hamas in Gaza.

It is also the latest in a string of major blows to Hezbollah, which has now lost multiple commanders and was already reeling after pagers and walkie-talkies owned by its members exploded earlier this month, killing dozens and maiming thousands.

Israel has warned that a “new era” of war was beginning with its “center of gravity” moving north, in a reference to the Lebanon border. One of its stated war aims is to return tens of thousands of its own civilians displaced by cross-border fighting.

Hundreds of thousands have been displaced within Lebanon due to the recent fighting, while more than a thousand have been killed since the airstrikes escalated last week, according to Lebanese government officials.

Israel has raised the possibility of a ground incursion into Lebanon, which, if undertaken, would be the fourth Israeli invasion of the country in the past 50 years.

Hezbollah has vowed that it will “continue its fight to confront the enemy,” while Iran, which backs the group as part of its network of regional proxies, has given an assurance of its solidarity.

Here’s what we know so far and where things might go next.

Escalating conflict

Israel has pounded what it says are Hezbollah targets in the Lebanese capital of Beirut and elsewhere in the country on Friday and Saturday, including the attack on the capital’s southern suburbs that killed Nasrallah.

Some of the strikes have come in densely populated areas, flattening residential buildings. Israel has said Hezbollah stores weapons in civilian buildings, which the group denies, and accuses Hezbollah of using residents as “human shields.”

Lebanese civilians say they cannot heed warnings from Israel’s military to avoid places where Hezbollah is operating, because the group is highly secretive. The warnings also often come just minutes before a building is struck.

Residents from Beirut’s southern suburbs have been fleeing to escape Israeli bombardment, with many seen sleeping in public places with no space left in makeshift shelters.

The latest attacks come after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off a ceasefire proposal brokered by the United States and France that called for a 21-day pause in fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border.

The White House has said it had “no knowledge of or participation in” Israel’s Friday attack on Beirut, with US President Joe Biden describing Nasrallah’s death as a “measure of justice for his many victims,” including Americans, while calling for de-escalation in conflicts across the Middle East.

Earlier Saturday, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Peter Lerner said the military was preparing for the possibility of a ground incursion, but it was only one option being considered.

What will Hezbollah – or Iran – do?

In the wake of Nasrallah’s killing – and the attack on pagers and walkie-talkies – Hezbollah’s remaining leaders are likely to be assessing how to meet, communicate and respond.

Some of the factors that will impact that response – such as the extent to which Israeli strikes have reduced the group’s munitions – remain unknown. But analysts say the setbacks faced by the group are unlikely to leave it completely weakened.

“Hezbollah has taken the biggest blow to its military infrastructure since its inception,” said Hanin Ghaddar, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and author of “Hezbollahland.”

The group, however, still retains skilled commanders, as well as many of its most powerful assets – including precision-guided missiles and long-range missiles that could inflict significant damage to Israel’s military and civilian infrastructure, said Ghaddar.

So far, there has not been a major barrage of rockets from Hezbollah that has caused significant, known damage to Israeli targets. And even in the wake of Nasrallah’s killing the group has yet to launch a major retaliation at the level that could see Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system overwhelmed and its power grid affected.

But the latest development raises the potential for a shift.

Another key question is the extent to which Iran could get involved.

The state has appeared wary of moving into direct conflict with Israel, even as their long-standing shadow war has been pushed further into the open in recent months – and observers say direct Iranian retaliation could also draw the US further into the conflict.

A senior US official said the US believes Iran will intervene in the conflict if they judge that they are about to “lose” Hezbollah. The combined effects of Israel’s operations against Hezbollah had already taken hundreds of fighters off the battlefield, according to that official and another person familiar with the intelligence.

Iran’s embassy in Lebanon in a social media post Friday called Nasrallah’s killing a “serious escalation that changes the rules of the game,” and said its perpetrator “will be punished and disciplined appropriately.”

The Iranian envoy to the United Nations on Saturday also requested an emergency meeting of the Security Council to “condemn Israel’s actions in the strongest possible terms.”

But the space for diplomacy seems limited, especially as months of work on a ceasefire deal for the war in Gaza have seen little lasting progress.

“At best, it’s a question of deterrence, management and maybe, if Hezbollah, the Israelis and the Iranians are open to it… agreements that will contain conflict,” he said.