Key Points
- The killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has boosted the popularity of Benjamin Netanyahu among Israelis.
- The assassination has enabled the army to regain a sense of prestige and the people to feel justice has been done.
- But experts question when anger over Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to bring home Israeli hostages from Gaza will return.
When an Israeli air strike on Friday evening, cheers rang out across Tel Aviv. For Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the move acts as a boon for his popularity at a time when he desperately needs it, experts say.
Israelis have been feeling burned since the October 7 assault on south Israel in which , according to Israeli tallies, and took about 250 others hostage.
“This was a huge blow to the Israel psyche and ego,” said Dr Eyal Mayroz, a senior lecturer of peace and conflict studies at the University of Sydney.
“That led to 11 months of anger at Netanyahu as the person held most responsible for the failure. But since the attack on Hezbollah, there is balm for these wounds.
“Suddenly, it was ‘look how great our army is, our security services’. Suddenly, there is widespread support for aggressive action by Israel, which has really played into Netanyahu’s popularity.”
More than 40,000 Palestinans have died in the escalation of the conflict since October, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, citing figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health, said, the organisation adding more than 1,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in the last 10 days.
‘Feeling of euphoria’
Nasrallah’s assassination has enabled the army to regain a sense of prestige and the people of Israel to feel justice has been done, said Dr Ran Porat, an expert on Israel and Middle Eastern Affairs at Monash University.
“The ability to have intel that is so accurate that you can send one missile and hit this specific person kilometres away is nothing more than astounding,” he told SBS News.
“The Israelis are very proud of that. And there’s a feeling of euphoria that this will solve the problem.
“The Israeli army’s prestige has been dramatically damaged after 7 October, and the war in Gaza has not elevated that because there have been no glaring successes except maybe .”
Hassan Nasrallah led the militant group through decades of conflict with Israel. Source: Getty / Anadolu
Successive Israeli governments have painted Hezbollah as “almost the devil incarnate”, said Dr Martin Kear, Middle East expert at the University of Sydney.
“Now that Nasrallah has been killed, this is Netanyahu and his government setting themselves up for re-election in 2026.
“He can now say, hand on heart, that he’s improved the safety and security of the Israeli people dramatically, he’s killed the head of Hamas, Hamas has been seriously degraded. The threat posed by Hezbollah directly, and Iran indirectly, has been seriously degraded. So there are lots of positives from Netanyahu’s perspective to really assuage some of the responsibility and guilt for 7 October.”
‘Great sadness and real hope’ over hostages
After October 7, many Israelis felt let down by their government, who was supposed to keep them safe, Porat said.
“This is real hope that the hostages still in Gaza, dead or alive, will return to Israel. And until that happens, the sadness, the anger, the pain grows. It’s very deep, very deep.”
Opinions on how to achieve this are divided. Some believe a ceasefire is the answer; others say the focus should be on continuing to push Hamas.
“There is 100 per cent support that Hamas must be removed as a threat. At the same time, there is bitterness and disappointment that Hamas is beaten but not gone,” said.
He added Israelis aren’t exposed to the horrors of what is happening in Gaza to the same extent as other parts of the world.
“There is less exposure to the horrible tragedy of the Palestinians than what you’d see in Australia, for example. But if you want that information, you can easily find it.”
Kear said most Israelis see the Palestinians as a “threat to the idea of Israel”. Nevertheless, there is mounting pressure among Israelis to bring the conflict in Gaza to a close.
But the killing the leader of Hezbollah has fired them up, he said.
“Israel has been trying to drag Iran and Hezbollah into the conflict from day one because Israel sees Iran as the regional bogeyman. Escalating the conflict against Hezbollah keeps momentum going,” he told SBS News.
Anger and blame towards Netanyahu
Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history — having served for over 16 years. Many Israelis have been angry at him for some time.
To an extent they blame Hamas’s actions on October 7 on Netanyahu’s policies aimed at dividing the Palestinian people.
Netanyahu, not wanting a Palestinian state, sought to undermine the Palestinian Authority — the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Israeli-occupied West Bank — by supporting Hamas as a rival. This strategy allowed him to claim that peace negotiations were impossible because the Palestinian Authority lacked unified support, with Hamas still opposing Israel, Mayroz explains.
“So he said, ‘how can I make a deal with one side when the other is still intent on destroying us?’ That was the kind of logic that preceded 7 October.”
Benjamin Netanyahu has been unpopular in Israel since the start of the war with Hamas. Source: AP / Abir Sultan
Many Israelis also believe Netanyahu has prioritised his own political interests over the return of the hostages, while the prime minister also faces various corruption charges.
A survey of Israeli adults conducted 3 March to 4 April by Pew Research showed 53 per cent trusted the government to do the right thing for Israel, with Israeli Jews about three times as likely as Israeli Arabs to say they trust the national government (61 per cent vs 23 per cent).
“Netanyahu now has a positive security message to say, and I don’t think we can underestimate the extent that Nasrallah’s death and what else is happening in Lebanon will have on his popularity.”
The latest poll says most Israelis are now more supportive of Netanyahu than most of his rivals.
“This is a change if you take into account six months ago, when people preferred others over him,” Porat said.
“He’s the comeback kid. The number one rule of Israeli politics is never bet against Netanyahu.”
He’s the comeback kid. The number one rule of Israeli politics is never bet against Netanyahu.
Ran Porat
But any reduction in anger towards Netanyahu over the war in Gaza may be temporary, Mayroz adds.
“The two main questions are, what will happen should Israel begin to suffer the consequences of Nasrallah’s death, which could come as thousands of missiles being fired at Israeli civilian populations.
“And when will that anger come back?”
How do Israelis feel about the future?
Israelis expect their country to continue to attack Hezbollah, Hamas and other Iranian proxies, Porat said.
“Israelis are tough people and there’s no less fear of Hezbollah.”
Though many are still concerned about the divisions within Israel and the consequences of another war.
“The worry is that this will be repeat of the [Israel–Hezbollah War] in 2006 when many people and Israeli soldiers died.
“But they want the army and the leadership to make people feel secure to go back to their homes.”
About 60,000 people have been evacuated from northern Israel because of near-daily attacks by the militant organisation in neighbouring Lebanon.
A view of an empty street in the evacuated Kibbutz Dafna in northern Israel, about a kilometre away from the border with Lebanon, which was cleared of residents immediately after the 7 October attacks. Source: Getty / Alberto Pizzoli/AFP
Mayroz said Israelis have fears at both at the existential level and the national level.
“There is fear at the national level that Israel is under existential threat. But there’s also a more powerful fear at the individual level. Will a rocket explode on my house or will my child be bombed in a bus or on the way to school?
“Fear is the most significant and often underappreciated factor that is responsible for the intractability of the conflict.”
But rather than halting the conflict, it’s sustaining it, Mayroz said.
“There’s a fear that Hezbollah will fire rockets at civilian populations in Israel and this fear is leading to the support for a stronger violence in Lebanon. They say if we stop that, then sooner or later Hezbollah will either reenact another 7 October on our towns in the north, or will fire rockets and missiles on Israel.”
Hezbollah is listed as a terrorist organisation by the Australian Government.
