“NOT A ONE-MAN SHOW”
With Lebanon’s most powerful man gone and his Shiite Muslim community displaced and bereaved, its support base will expect more than just a symbolic response, analysts said.
Amal Saad, a Lebanese researcher of Hezbollah at Britain’s Cardiff University, said that after the enormous blow to the now leaderless group, it would need to strike a delicate balance in choosing a response.
On the one hand, Hezbollah would seek to avoid triggering an Israeli “carpet bombing campaign against Beirut or all of Lebanon”, while “at the same time raising the morale” of its supporters and fighters, she said.
Hezbollah would need to show it can protect its own people, and exact revenge on Israel but also keep the peace among Lebanon’s diverse religious communities.
Shiite Lebanese, who constitute the group’s support base, are among the tens of thousands displaced from Lebanon’s south, east and Dahiyeh by Israel’s bombardment – seeking shelter in areas where other religious communities live.
