It didn’t take the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah long to see Israel ecstatic in its “victory,” boasting that the terrorist would no longer terrorize the rest of the world. This sanguinary triumphalism is more delusional than decisive, as Israel forgets a basic truth from history: killing single leaders rarely dismounts opposition movements but usually provokes them.

The Israeli army’s self-glorification through a social network over the killing of Nasrallah curiously forgets the point that Hezbollah’s existence itself has been a product of Israeli aggression. In 1982, as Israel invaded Lebanon, tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians were killed, sowing seeds for the rise of Hezbollah. Israel’s random attacks in Gaza and Lebanon have only succeeded in restrengthening resistance rather than eliminating it, making Israel’s argument that the death of Nasrallah makes for a fatal blow to him and Hizbullah pretty naive, at the least.

A Momentary Cycle of Violence

For the first time, Israel is not celebrating the killing of a Hezbollah leader. In 1992, after the killing of the co-founder of Hezbollah, Abbas al-Musawi, by Israeli helicopters, the group gained strength under Nasrallah’s hands. He transformed Hezbollah into a powerful army that was able to drive Israel out of southern Lebanon in the year 2000 after occupying it for 22 years.

There’s a long, bloody history to Israel’s assassination campaign: last year, Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh was murdered in a joint Mossad-CIA operation, and like Musawi, his death only raised his status to mythic proportions within the organization. These killings do little to dismantle Hezbollah but instead strengthen its resolve.

Similarly, Israel has employed the same strategy of dealing with the Palestinian resistance since its inception. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, killings of members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation were ‘business as usual.’ In the 1990s and 2000s, it was the leaders of Hamas who became the focus of Israeli extra-judicial executions. In each case, it would seem that Israel got the consequences wrong; resistance was not checked, but rather, killing seemed more likely to lead to escalations of violence or new waves of resistance.

Israel’s assassination of Nasrallah comes at pretty volatile times. The genocide already underway in Gaza has killed over 700 Lebanese and Palestinians within a little less than a week; now, strikes on residential buildings in Beirut targeting Nasrallah resulted in the killing of many civilians. Israel speaks out on its right to defend itself while undermining its central role in maintaining mass atrocities in the region.

Any killing of Nasrallah will inevitably provoke Hezbollah to escalate its reaction in the military dimension. Even now, various quarters are reporting that Israel will make an army invasion of southern Lebanon, seeking to exploit what it believes to be the temporary disorientation of Hezbollah. This would simply fuel larger conflict because Hezbollah’s resistance has been based on four decades of Israeli occupation and terrorism, not on one man’s leadership.

A Pyrrhic Victory

Israel is in the grave, yet it endorses the murder of Nasrallah while still being premature and dangerous. This is in the sense that military victory is perceived; however, the political and humanitarian costs are so massive. History has revealed that it does not come with peace and the killing of resistance leaders but instead brings greater conflict. Nasrallah’s death will not make Hezbollah disappear; it will become more hardened and determined to strike back.

In its quest for domination, Israel continues to perpetuate the cycle of violence. “Bomb and kill Nasrallah” is but another chapter in a long history of failed policies: guns and Armalites instead of diplomacy. No matter how many times Israel kills or kills Nasrallah, there will never be lasting peace without a confrontation of the root causes of the conflict: occupation and systemic violence. Condemned to a future of endless war, with no winners but just more victims, both parties will continue this ominous tide.