Following the recent death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon, there has been a new trend of naming newborn babies “Nasrallah” in Iraq. According to Iraq’s Health Ministry, about 100 babies across the country have been named Nasrallah. Nasrallah was leading the terrorist organization Hezbollah for the last three decades. She was considered by many to be a symbol of resistance against Israeli and Western influence. His popularity was strong in Iraq, especially among the country’s majority Shia community.
Now the people of Iraq are also naming their children Nasrallah in the memory of Nasrallah. People say they are doing this “in honor of the martyr of the resistance”. Nasrallah’s assassination sparked a wave of anger in Iraq, resulting in mass protests in Baghdad and other cities. The protesters condemned Israel’s action and called it a violation of international law. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani described Nasrallah as “a martyr on the path of righteousness.” Three days of state mourning were observed in memory of the Hezbollah leader, with tributes held across the country.
Nasrallah has deep ties to Iraq, spanning religious and political ideologies. He was born in 1960 to a modest family, and studied Islam at a Shia seminary in the Iraqi city of Najaf. It was here that his political ideas took shape. Following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Hezbollah was born and Nasrallah joined it. The group was founded with the support of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, initially serving as a militia against Israeli forces.
Nasrallah took over the leadership of Hezbollah in 1992 after the assassination of his predecessor and mentor Abbas Mousavi. Over the next three decades, he transformed the group into a regional power, exerting influence on conflicts from Syria to Yemen and training Palestinians in Gaza. Under Nasrallah’s leadership, Hezbollah’s power grew at both the military and political levels. The organization provided missiles and rockets to groups such as Hamas and militias in Iraq and Yemen, part of a broader “stream of resistance” against Israel and its allies.
