SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Hezbollah has confirmed that its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Beirut. Hezbollah is the dominant political party in Lebanon. It also has a militant branch that has been in conflict with Israel for decades. Nasrallah's death is a momentous event with far-reaching implications for the region and the world. We joined now by our correspondents Jane Arraf in Beirut and Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv. Thank you both for being with us.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Thank you, Scott.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Thank you.
SIMON: Jane, help us understand the reaction you've observed today in Beirut.
ARRAF: Gosh. Shock, sorrow, grief, in fact, and fear, particularly in areas - in Shia areas and places where residents of the southern suburbs where he was killed and where there are continued Israeli airstrikes have fled, absolute grief in the streets, on the roads. I saw one woman driving a car with a poodle next to her and just sobbing her heart out.
Down along the Corniche, where some people have ended up because they don't know where else to go after they fled the airstrikes, there were groups of women who were crying and trying to console each other. One girl, a teenager, was inconsolable. And her mother was saying, no, no, no. Don't cry. We're still strong. Next to her was another woman who was screaming into the Mediterranean. There's a railing in Corniche that overlooks the sea. And she was screaming, Sayed (ph) Nasrallah, where are you? You haven't died. You can't die.
So they all feel, obviously, really grief-stricken and lost. There are clearly some people who will be celebrating this in Lebanon. It's a very diverse society. But they're certainly not celebrating openly. And as for the organization itself, it has got to be reeling, not just from this, but for the last week of severe, intense attacks that have really taken a toll on their leadership command structure and shown how vulnerable they were. And now their leader of 32 years has been killed.
SIMON: Daniel Estrin, what about the reaction in Tel Aviv?
ESTRIN: Well, it couldn't be different - more different, Scott. There has been very open celebration here in Tel Aviv. My colleague, Hadeel Al-Shalchi, was walking by an apartment in Tel Aviv and heard the music, a song, an old Hebrew song from several years ago, saying, may Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, go to God. And so there's a lot of jubilation here. Israel's defense minister is calling it one of the most significant assassinations in Israeli history.
And yet there is a little bit of pause from Israel's military leaders, who are saying, for instance, the Israeli military chief says challenging days await us. And the military has limited public gatherings in central Israel now, signaling that some kind of retaliation could be coming. Israel's military headquarters, the place where this assassination was approved, is right smack in central Tel Aviv.
SIMON: So when he says challenging days are ahead, they anticipate some kind of armed response from Hezbollah?
ESTRIN: That's the question. Is Hezbollah capable now, amid all this chaos, to carry out that retaliation? We haven't seen wide strikes deep inside Israel in kind with the kind of daring strikes that Israel carried out in Lebanon. The question is, will Iran-backed militias throughout the region fire at Israel, whether that's the Houthis in Yemen, whether that's Shia militias in Iraq? Israel is preparing for that potential escalation.
SIMON: And, Jane Arraf, obviously, a lot of people just hearing the news today are going to wonder if this is going to lead to a larger conflict in the region. And, of course, as Daniel has suggested, the name of Iran is mentioned very prominently, isn't it?
ARRAF: Absolutely, Iran is key to this. We haven't really heard much reaction from Iran yet. Lebanon has made clear, again, it really is trying hard not to be drawn into a wider conflict. It - officials here have told Iran that they cannot land cargo planes here after Israel's indication that it would see Iranian planes landing at the airport with, as Israel alleges, weapons shipments. It would see that as a reason to bomb the airport. Iran certainly is influential, and it will be key, but it has indicated up until now that it does not want to get directly involved, doesn't want to be pulled into a war that would spiral out of control. And that is unlikely to change.
SIMON: Let me ask you both, Jane Arraf and Daniel Estrin. Obviously, the United States and European allies of the United States have been - and Israel, for that matter, have been urging a cease-fire. Do the events of the last 48 hours suggest that a cease-fire agreement might be closer or farther away? Jane?
ARRAF: Yeah. I mean, on this side, everything Israel has done would indicate that it wants to go as far as possible in killing as many Hezbollah people as possible and making sure that they cannot resurface. So that would not argue for a cease-fire. Hezbollah itself is really unwilling to accept a cease-fire. It made clear when it announced the death of Nasrallah that it would continue fighting Israel. And Nasrallah has always made clear that there won't be a cease-fire here unless there's a cease-fire in Gaza because the whole reason, they say, that they got into the war across the border here is in support of Hamas in Gaza. And even though that's not the headline today, that war continues.
SIMON: Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv?
ESTRIN: It's interesting to note that Hassan Nasrallah was killed meeting other senior officials. Hezbollah has announced that another senior official was killed along in that strike. And Iran has also now announced that a senior commander of Iran was killed in that strike as well. This comes shortly after the U.S. proposed a 21-day cease-fire in Lebanon. And so Hezbollah leaders may have been meeting in order to discuss that moment and how to respond.
I will note that Israel is seeking to cut off the ties between Lebanon and Gaza. As Nasrallah said that the fire would continue on Israel until there was a cease-fire in Gaza, Israel sees Lebanon as a completely different front. And Israel is trying in its strikes, it says, to distance Hezbollah from Israel's border and to significantly degrade Hezbollah's capabilities. We've seen that happen just in the past 10, 11 days. And Israeli observers are saying that this momentum that Israel is pushing may open up a possibility for Israel to try to reach some kind of agreement on Lebanon's border. But Gaza cease-fire talks are all but frozen.
SIMON: Daniel Estrin, NPR's correspondent and Tel Aviv, and Jane Arraf in Beirut, thank you very much, both of you, for being with us and all of your good work as this important story breaks. Thank you.
ARRAF: Thank you, Scott.
ESTRIN: Thanks, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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