Two years ago, I sat in a room where a decisive question was being discussed: Should Israel strike Hassan Nasrallah, a man I had spent much of my professional life studying? This fall, as Israel marks two years since his death and three years since Hamas’s October 7 attack and the war it unleashed, I keep returning to that discussion.
Hundreds of intelligence officers and analysts spent years building the intelligence case for targeting Nasrallah and minimising harm to civilians. I remember working around the clock with young analysts until the long-awaited confirmation came from Col. M., who led intelligence work on Hezbollah. One of the finest officers I have known, she told us: “We have it. If you decide to act, you can.”
What remained was the strategic decision. In the room, not one person objected. Mindful of the lessons of October 7, we sought dissenting views and contacted two people considered most likely to oppose the operation. Both supported it. The recommendation moved up the chain of command: Nasrallah blocked any cease-fire in Lebanon and would never unlink the Lebanese front from Gaza. Final approval came as Israeli Air Force jets were en route.
I watched the live images as the bombs hit the compound where he was staying. When confirmation arrived, the defining moments of Nasrallah’s career came flooding back. I felt profound relief and satisfaction that a man whose organisation had killed so many Israelis and Americans was gone. I also felt the strange emptiness intelligence officers sometimes experience when a subject who has occupied their thinking for years suddenly disappears from the world.
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