Jawad Nasrallah, son of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, sits at the burial site ahead of the first anniversary of his father's assassination, on the outskirts of Beirut, on Sept. 24, 2025. (Credit: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)
BEIRUT — This time last year, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was consumed by rage over Israel's detonation of pagers worn by members of his group throughout Lebanon, according to his son. Days later, Nasrallah himself was assassinated by Israel.
The pager explosions and Nasrallah's killing in an Israeli air attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut in September 2024 turned out to be the opening salvos of an Israeli assault that killed more than 4,000 people across Lebanon and destroyed swathes of the South.
The war, which Israel said it conducted to end Hezbollah's cross-border attacks in support of Palestinians in Gaza, shook Hezbollah's hold on power in Lebanon, where the group is now under pressure to give up its arms.
Those developments were unimaginable a year ago when Hezbollah's then-leader was confronted with the major intelligence breach in the communication devices that killed dozens of the group's members and maimed thousands of others.
"He was upset, angry, resentful — there was a lot of resentment and thinking, 'How could this happen?' He considered himself entrusted with those lives," Jawad Nasrallah, Nasrallah's second-oldest son, told Reuters in an interview at his father's grave.
Security was tight around Nasrallah at the time. Jawad, like more than a million Lebanese, had been displaced by Israeli air strikes and had not seen his father for three months. "You can say we took it day by day. Nothing was certain," Jawad said.
Nasrallah's last televised speech was on September 19. Eight days later, a string of Israeli bunker-busting bombs on a Hezbollah complex in Beirut's southern suburbs killed Nasrallah, who had led the powerful Shi'ite religious, political and military group for more than 30 years.
"We found out on the news like everyone else. It was shocking but we couldn't cry - no one in the house could scream or express their feelings," Jawad said, explaining that other tenants in the apartment building where they were temporarily staying were unaware of their links to the Hezbollah leader.
At the time, Israeli strikes targeted displaced Shi'ite Muslims dozens of kilometres from Lebanon's southern border, raising the specter of civil war as Sunni or Christian towns regarded fleeing Shi'ite Muslims with open suspicion.
"We felt a moment of alienation like everyone else, in addition to the horrors of that time, which was terrible for everyone: war, bombing, brutality - and on top of that, alienation," Jawad said.
With Israel escalating strikes across Lebanon and sending ground troops into its south, Nasrallah's body could not be moved into a morgue for several days before a temporary burial. A formal ceremony was held months later during a truce.
In February, Jawad hinted his father may have known his death was near. During their last meeting, Nasrallah reportedly told his wife, “We entrust this moment to God. This is the last time you’ll see me. We won’t see each other again.”
He then told his son, “You will be a father to your sisters.”
Hezbollah will never disarm
Jawad also dismissed the decision by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s government to enforce a state monopoly over arms, adopted on Aug. 5 and enacted Sept. 5 after the army presented its plan.
Hezbollah has refused to give up its arsenal — a stance that Jawad, a businessman with no formal position in the group but who is sanctioned by the U.S., reiterated. "Never in your fantasies or dreams," he said, adding that he still asks his father for guidance.
"I ask him to solve some dilemmas. I tell him: 'You have to solve this problem for us and help me with it,'" he said.
Reporting by Laila Bassam and Ahmad Al Kerdi; editing by Maya Gebeily and Philippa Fletcher
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