By Timour Azhari and Samia Nakhoul
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Killing or incapacitating Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah would deal a significant blow to the Iran-backed Lebanese group he has led for 32 years, analysts said on Friday after reports Israel targeted him with a strike.
A source close to Hezbollah said Nasrallah was still alive after the attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, on Friday evening. A senior Iranian security official said Tehran was checking on Nasrallah's status.
Replacing Nasrallah would be an even bigger challenge now than at any point for years, after a series of recent Israeli attacks that have killed top Hezbollah commanders and raised questions over its internal security.
"The whole landscape would change big time," said Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy research director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.
"He has been the glue that has held together an expanding organisation," Hage Ali said.
Hezbollah, which was formed by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in the early 1980s to battle Israel, is also a major social, religious and political movement for Lebanese Shi'ite Muslims, with Nasrallah at its heart.
"He became a legendary figure, kind of, for the Lebanese Shia," said Hage Ali.
Nasrallah himself became Hezbollah leader when Israel killed his predecessor and he has been at constant risk of assassination ever since.
"You kill one, they get a new one," said a European diplomat of the group's approach.
However, amid a sudden series of Israeli successes in its war against Hezbollah and an onslaught of air strikes, his death would greatly aggravate an already fraught moment for the group.
"Hezbollah will not collapse if Nasrallah is killed or incapacitated, but this will be a major blow to the group’s morale. It would also underline Israel’s security and military superiority and access," said Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at the Chatham House policy institute in London.
The potential impact of Nasrallah's death on Hezbollah's military capabilities is also unclear. Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire for a year across the Lebanese border in their worst conflict since 2006, triggered by the war in Gaza.
"Israel will want to translate this pressure into a new status quo in which its north is secure, but this will not happen quickly even if Nasrallah is eliminated," Khatib said.
Hezbollah claimed several rocket attacks on Israel in the hours after the Beirut strike in what analysts said was an effort to show it could still carry out such operations after Israel said it targeted Hezbollah's command center.
"Israel has declared war. It is a full-scale war, and Israel is using this opportunity to eliminate the leadership structure and destroy Hezbollah's infrastructure," said Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.
"They are breaking Hezbollah's power. There's no need to kill every member of Hezbollah but if you destroy its combat structure and force them to surrender. It loses credibility," Gerges said.
SUCCESSORS
Any new leader would have to be acceptable both within the organisation in Lebanon but also to its backers in Iran, said Philip Smyth, an expert on Shi'ite militias.
The man widely regarded as Nasrallah's heir, Hashem Safieddine, was also still alive after Friday's attack, the source close to Hezbollah said.
Safieddine, who oversees Hezbollah's political affairs and sits on the group's Jihad Council, is a cousin of Nasrallah and like him is a cleric who wears the black turban denoting descent from Islam's Prophet Mohammed.
The U.S. State Department designated him a terrorist in 2017 and in June he threatened a big escalation against Israel after the killing of another Hezbollah commander. "Let (the enemy) prepare himself to cry and wail," he said at the funeral.
Nasrallah "started tailoring positions for him within a variety of different councils within Lebanese Hezbollah. Some of them were more opaque than others. They've had him come, go out and speak," said Smyth.
Safieddine's family ties and physical resemblance to Nasrallah as well as his religious status as a descendent of Mohammed would all count in his favour, Smyth said.
(Reporting by Timour Azhari, Samia Nakhoul, Tom Perry, Jonathan Landay and John Irish; Additional reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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