Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah – together with scores of civilians rarely mentioned in Western media – is a major tactical success for the Netanyahu government in Israel. After securing few, if any, strategic wins in Gaza over several months, all the while landing itself at the International Court of Justice on genocide charges and mobilizing global public opinion decisively against it, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has scored several points with a single blow: Hezbollah is severely degraded, Iran is on the defensive, the United States is closer to getting dragged into a regional war all the while US-Iran diplomacy and a Palestinian state are ever more distant.