Up First from NPR - Israel Kills Hezbollah Leader; Helene Floods North Carolina

Episode Date: September 28, 2024

Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed on Friday, when a series of blasts targeting Hezbollah rip through Beirut. His killing and the attack on the capital signal a major escalation in the fighting between Israel and Lebanon. Plus, Hurricane Helene might've been downgraded to a tropic storm, but it still managed to drench North Carolina - we'll have the latest on the storm's impact.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been killed in Israeli strikes on the Lebanese capital of Beirut. Friday's strikes hit several apartment buildings and, according to the Israeli military, targeted Hezbollah's headquarters. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon, and this is Up First from NPR News. Nasrallah's killing and the attack on Beirut signaled a major escalation in the fighting between Israel and Lebanon. With this, Israel seems to have expanded another major front on its northern border. How does this affect the broader conflict and the Gaza ceasefire talks? We'll tell you more. Plus, Hurricane Helene might have been downgraded to a tropical storm,

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our correspondent in Beirut, and Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv. Thank you both for being with us. Thank you, Scott. Thanks, Scott. Jane, let's begin with you there in Beirut. What's the reaction? Oh, gosh. Where do I begin? We are on the Corniche, where some people have left after airstrikes in the southern suburbs. Some of the people have even stayed here overnight because there's nowhere to go. And as soon as there was confirmation that Nasrallah had been killed, I don't know if you can hear the woman shouting behind me.

We can, yeah. But it me. We can. It started as weeping. There were women weeping in cars. I saw one driving with a poodle next to her who was sobbing at the news. A lot of the women here have just can't stop crying. One of them was leaning over the metal railing and shouting at the sea, Sayyid Nasrallah, where are you? Where are you? The grief here is intense. That obviously is not all of Lebanon. There will be some in Lebanon who are celebrating, although certainly not publicly, but certainly for the Shia and even those who are concerned about what comes next. This is a very unsettling day.

Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv, what's the reaction been there? So there's a lot of jubilation among many Israelis, and the military has published an audio recording, it said was of Israel's Air Force chief speaking to a fighter pilot who participated in the operation killing Nasrallah. And the major general said, you've brought a presentation of victory. I hope, we very much hope, we have cut down this terror organization. Shana Raff, what are the implications of Nasrallah's death for Hezbollah? Well, it's certainly a severe blow. I mean, the fact that he has been the head of Hezbollah for 32 years. Sorry, we're being told to move along, so we're going

to do that. Head of Hezbollah for 32 years. And that's not like being the chairman of a corporation. He is worshipped, in a sense, among many, many people. What that means for the organization itself, he has a successor. Successor had been named years ago. So there will be somebody stepping in, but he certainly won't be Hassan Nasrallah. And as we've seen with all of the airstrikes, the exploding pagers, the remarkable intelligence information that must have led to this targeting, Hezbollah does appear to be reeling from the latest attacks. Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv, how does the Israeli leadership read this? Because on the one hand, they've killed the leader of Hezbollah. On the other hand, they must worry about what comes next. Well, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu actually approved this operation

as he just finished addressing the United Nations General Assembly. He was in New York. His office released a photo of him on the phone there approving the operation. So there is a lot of, there's a feeling of major success in Israel. I've been speaking to observers in the region. One of them is Amr al-Sabaila, who is a Jordanian security expert. He's been a close observer of Hezbollah. He says the very fact that Nasrallah was killed with other Hezbollah leadership, as Israel has said,

shows that he took a major risk to be there with his commanders in Lebanon after these last two weeks of really crippling Israeli attacks, killing top commanders of the organization. And he says this shows the group was facing a major crisis. Have a listen. The level of shock among Hezbollah cannot be measured, actually, because simply they never expected that Israel will be the one who initiate and the one who continue and the one who does not stop attacking Hezbollah. I will say that Israeli observers are warning this morning that even if Nasrallah is dead, Hezbollah still possesses a lot of weaponry to threaten Israel. And let me ask you both, in turn, beginning with Jane Araf there in Beirut, what are the implications for the conflict widening now?

Obviously, Iran's name will get mentioned a lot. It will, and Iran has indicated for going back to the beginning of the war in Gaza last year that it really, really wants to avoid a war that it doesn't believe that it would emerge unharmed from. So we haven't heard very much from Iran about this, but we do know that Iran will act very, very carefully about any possible response. It seems to have been acting very carefully for the last week or so. The Lebanese are worried about it as well. This morning, one of the Lebanese officials said that they had made a decision that Iranian aircraft could not land at the Beirut airport. And that was after Israel made clear that if it saw Iranian cargo planes, in any case, landing, that it would feel free to see the Beirut airport as a target.

We're not going to return, it doesn't seem like, to the civil war era here. This is not a case where it seems as if Lebanese are going to be fighting each other in the streets, as you pointed out. Hezbollah, still very strong, tens of thousands of fighters, but the killing really dramatically changes so many things here. And Daniel Estrin, I want to ask you how this is not only read in Tel Aviv, but what are, how does this promote or blunt talk of a ceasefire, which the U.S. has been urging? Right. The U.S. had put forth a proposal for a 21-day temporary ceasefire in Lebanon that could lead to diplomatic talks, and that could also lead not only to diplomacy and a ceasefire in Lebanon, but also in Gaza.

But, of course, ceasefire talks on the Gaza front have all but frozen, and the weight has now shifted to Lebanon. We have not seen Hezbollah and Iran retaliating now with significant strikes across Israel following this escalation, following this killing of Nasrallah, and in recent weeks and days. But the Israeli army has just now announced that they will be restricting gatherings of more than a thousand people in public gatherings in central Israel. And that signals that Israel is bracing itself potentially for more strikes

from, it could be Hezbollah and even farther afield in the region, Yemen, Iraq, and other militias that Iran supports. But this is showing that Israel does not fear the consequences of its strikes as it continues escalating those strikes in Lebanon, as we've seen in the past two weeks. Some Israeli observers say this provides a brief window of opportunity for Israel perhaps to develop an exit strategy with regards to the conflict in Lebanon. Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv, Jane Aref in Beirut, thanks so much for being on the job for us there. You're welcome. Thank you. And NPR will continue to bring you updates on this story throughout the day.

You can go to stations.npr.org to find your local NPR station for the latest news. Tropical depression Helene tore through large swaths of the southeast this week, hitting Florida and parts of Georgia. But it also drenched the mountains of western North Carolina, bringing with it devastating flooding. Laura Hackett of Blue Ridge Public Radio witnessed the storm and joins us from Asheville, North Carolina. Thanks for being with us. Good morning, Scott. Thank you for having me on. Storm has passed, but the recovery is just beginning. What are the biggest challenges today?

Yeah, what's hard right now is we just have very limited information about what's happening in our communities. In Asheville, we're just coming off a city-implemented curfew this morning, and so cell service, power, water outages, those are all still happening throughout the region. There's also been extreme flooding with some parts of town and some communities completely underwater, cars and even shipping containers floating around, and all roads in western North Carolina remain closed. So recovery has really barely started because officials can't even get to those places to assess damage. You know, mountain roads that are already difficult to traverse

have been completely blocked, you know, keeping critical emergency services out, and medical crews are having to navigate fallen trees and extensive flooding throughout the region. And Laura, how does communications dropping out in this big swath of Appalachia, including the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains, complicate recovery? Yeah, communication has been such a huge challenge. I mean, like I said, cell service is out for many counties, tens of thousands of people at the least. In fact, we have two rural reporters who currently don't have cell service. So we haven't even been able to connect with them to see what they're experiencing

in those far out places. So that lack of service plus all those closed roads means there's really no way to call for help. No way it's for folks to let family and friends know they're okay. People are really isolated in a lot of places. NC Emergency Management says that the infrastructure damage will take time to repair, but there's no specific estimates of time frame of when that communication will come back online. And there were reports yesterday of a possible dam failure at Lake Lure. Yeah, Lake Lure is about an hour southeast of Asheville, popular tourist resort area. Dirty Dancing was filmed there.

Yesterday, the National Weather Service called for an imminent failure of the dam, and emergency staff went door-to-door to encourage evacuation in that 1,200-person town. What ended up happening is that water did flow over, but so far the 100-year-old dam has held. And as of last night, officials from the county have said that engineers have evaluated the dam and determined it's no longer at imminent risk of failure. And, Laura, who seems to have been hit hardest so far? Yeah, and it's still so early to tell because, you know, we have so many of these blackout zones. But as is often the case, the most vulnerable have been hard hit.

So in Asheville, people in temporary shelters in permanent supportive housing were moved quickly by law enforcement and busses shelters. I did speak with one family of four who was evacuated from the Super 8 hotel where they are living. They were rushed into a bus with no time to grab their belongings, not even their shoes. Teenage daughter Haley,

knee deep in the water, described that scene in her home. The bed started floating and it kind of scared me too because the water was bubbling and that like freaked me out a little. So obviously a very scary situation for Haley and the rest of the people in this region. Laura Hackett, who is a reporter with Blue Ridge Public Radio in Asheville, North Carolina. Laura, thanks so much. And our best wishes to you and your colleagues who are doing such a great job in covering this story. Thank you so much, Scott. I appreciate it. And that's up first for Saturday, September 28th.

I'm Aisha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon. Michael Radcliffe and Elena Torek produced today's podcast. Andrew Craig directed. Our editors were Dee Parvaz, Eric Whitney, and Vincent Nee. Ana Glovna is our technical director with engineering support from Nisha Hynas, Andy Huther, and Arthur Halliday-Lorent. Evie Stone is our senior supervising editor. Sarah Oliver is our executive producer.

And Jim Kane is our deputy managing editor. Tomorrow on the podcast, did you get those flyers in the mail pushing you to switch your home's energy to solar power? You usually toss them out, right? Well, you can tune in tomorrow to hear the team from Planet Money on where residential solar businesses

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