Tens of thousands of people packed into a stadium in Beirut early Sunday to attend the funeral of Hezbollah’s former leader, nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital.

Hassan Nasrallah was killed when Israel’s air force dropped more than 80 bombs on the militant group’s main operations room. His death was a major blow for the Iran-backed group that the late leader transformed into a potent force in the Middle East.

The business owners arrived one by one, but all were united in their mission on a chilly December morning: Salvage anything from the pulverized market in this hillside city in southern Lebanon.

A photo studio operator and his son trudged through debris and twisted metal to recover dust-coated negatives and camera lenses. A clothes shop proprietor dragged a garbage bag holding leggings, retrieved from under mangled rebar. And an optical store owner stood atop crushed concrete slabs that were once the rooftop of his business’s building.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken told his counterparts from the G7 countries on Sunday that an attack by Iran and Hezbollah against Israel could start as early as Monday, three sources briefed on the call tell Axios.

Why it matters: Blinken convened the conference call to coordinate with close U.S. allies and try to generate last-minute diplomatic pressure on Iran and Hezbollah to minimize their retaliation as much as possible. He stressed that limiting the impact of their strikes is the best chance to prevent all-out war.

The past 48 hours have been the most dramatic and consequential of any since Hamas’s war against Israel began on October 7, 2023. More than that: they could reverse the momentum of this war which, until now, has been dictated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies. 

Let’s review the news:

srael has inflicted two devastating blows on its enemies.

It has not confirmed that it killed the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, but it is hard to see who else would have wanted him dead more than the Israelis. As for the Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, Israel says he was killed in Beirut in an “intelligence-based elimination”.

For Israel, everyone senior in Hamas is a legitimate target after the attacks of 7 October 2023, which inflicted the worst single day of bloodshed on Israel since independence in 1948.

With the death of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Israel appears to have eliminated top officials in two organizations committed to its destruction within the space of a day. On Tuesday, in what appears to have been a drone strike, Israel said it killed Hezbollah’s deputy military commander, Fuad Shukr.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed this past week, at the invitation of House Speaker Mike Johnson, a joint session of Congress.

The prime minister's job that night was to make clear to the Congress, to the nation, and to the world the "what" and "why" of Israel's operation in Gaza, following the murderous attack by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, and why Americans should identify with and support Israel's struggle.

My heart went out to this brave and besieged leader as he made his case.