Even before Israel's ground invasion, Hezbollah struggled to regroup

By Nabih BulosForeign Correspondent

Oct. 1, 2024 4:28 AM PT

BEIRUT — The saying goes that generals always prepare to fight the last war. Hezbollah seems to have fallen into that mistake.

The Iran-backed group, which prides itself for fighting Israel to a standstill and withdrawal from Lebanon in 2006, now appears badly outmaneuvered by a technologically superior foe that has assassinated dozens of its top leaders, destroyed a significant portion of its weapons, disrupted its communications and killed hundreds of its fighters.

And all that was before a single Israeli soldier crossed the border into Lebanon. Israel launched what it called a limited ground invasion late Monday.

The most humiliating of the recent blows came Friday, when a shock-and-awe barrage of more than 80 bunker-buster missiles drilled down a site in Dahieh, a Hezbollah-dominated suburb of Beirut. The assault obliterated four residential buildings and what the Israeli military said was Hezbollah’s underground command headquarters. The attack killed the group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and some of his top-line lieutenants.

A building collapses in a cloud of dust.

With Nasrallah dead, questions have mounted as to whether Hezbollah — classified by the U.S. as a terrorist organization — can regroup.

In the first days after Nasrallah’s assassination, Hezbollah appeared in disarray. Its normally active media arm went into radio silence. Officials stopped answering calls. Operatives — usually a constant presence in areas where it holds sway — could scarcely be seen. The few young reservists encountered in Beirut appeared listless and demoralized; some openly cried.

By Monday, the group was finding its footing again. Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, gave the first public address by one of its senior leadership since Nasrallah’s killing.

He insisted the group’s command-and-control apparatus and arsenal of mid- and long-range weaponry remained intact, and it was continuing its cross-border barrage at the same rate. He said that the group was prepared for a ground invasion. “We will exit victorious from this battle,” he said.

Despite the bravado, some analysts believe the group is a spent force.

“The penetration of Hezbollah is too deep and unprecedented, to a level so overwhelming it didn’t even occur [as possible] to the group,” said Hilal Khashan, political science professor and Hezbollah expert at American University of Beirut. He compared the group’s loss to Egypt’s defeat against the Israelis in 1967, when its warplanes didn’t even leave the ground before being destroyed by Israeli fighters.

Protesters hold posters of Hassan Nasrallah.

“This is much worse. The Israeli army eliminated Hezbollah before the war even began, unlike with the Egyptians,” he said.

And with Israel monitoring all routes into Lebanon, Iran — Hezbollah’s main backer — will have no way to replenish its arms, Khashan added. “Hezbollah as a fighting machine has ended,” he said. “It’s too late to regroup. ”

Others pointed out that Hezbollah has maintained the frequency of its cross-border attacks. But those are conducted by low-level units that operate in a decentralized manner, said Sam Heller, a Hezbollah expert at the Century Foundation think tank.

“It’s possible to spin that as a win, but it’s obviously not deterring or meaningfully constraining the Israelis,” Heller said.

He suggested that the loss of so much top-level leadership has disrupted Hezbollah’s ability to make key executive decisions involving the use of ground forces or its most lethal weapons — one possible explanation as to why the group has not deployed them in recent days.

“Is that a choice or are they unable to deploy them?” Heller said.

Some experts said Hezbollah may have to limit itself to continuing smaller cross-border attacks, hoping it can make them last long enough to inflict pain on Israeli society and make the conflict unpalatable.

“Even if Hezbollah used its missiles sparingly, firing them one or two a day at Israel, kill no one, and yet all these people remain in shelters — then Israel would be vulnerable,” said Amal Saad, a Hezbollah expert and lecturer in political science and international relations at Cardiff University. She added that the group has long demonstrated its ability to rebound from difficult blows.

Hezbollah’s rise to become one of the world’s most capable non-state armies and a political power broker in Lebanon began in the 1980s.

Smoke rises over a neighborhood of Beirut.

In the crucible of Lebanon’s civil war, it emerged as an Iran-backed group of Shiite fighters — inspired by the 1979 Iranian revolution — that aimed to protect the country’s marginalized Shiites and fight Israel’s occupation. When the civil war ended in 1990, it was the only faction not to disarm. In 1992, it entered Lebanese politics.

Its reputation grew in 2000, after Israel withdrew from Lebanon’s south, and in 2006, after the group fought a 34-day war that left wide parts of Lebanon destroyed, but the group still standing. It later fought in Syria, propping up the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and providing training in Iraq and Yemen.

By this point, Hezbollah could be accurately described as a state within a state, using its position in Lebanon’s government to defend its interests and providing Shiite followers much-needed services in health, education and reconstruction — often superior to those given by the Lebanese government.

It also built a more powerful force than the Lebanese army, with a stockpile of 150,000 rockets and missiles, estimates say, along with 50,000 fighters. Nasrallah claimed the group had double that number.

Much of that has been eroded over the past year, after Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel. It said it was acting in support of Palestinians in Gaza by forcing Israel to bolster security of its border with Lebanon while simultaneously fighting the Israel-Hamas war in the south.

Hezbollah seemed to be betting that with calibrated attacks, it could prevent an all-out war — and that Israel would be deterred from invading Lebanon again by the threat of Hezbollah’s large arsenal of rockets.

It bet wrong. The clashes have cost Hezbollah dearly. And now a ground war appears unavoidable.

Lebanese people have also suffered. More than 1,000 have been killed and 1 million displaced over the past year. Some 60,000 in Israel have also fled their homes.

Hezbollah’s financial arm and business side, which would be needed for the group to rebuild, remain operational, said Joseph Daher, who wrote a book on Hezbollah and teaches at Lausanne University in Switzerland.

“The party is partially functioning. Their people on the ground are still working,” he said, adding that the group’s revenues — whether from donations from the faithful or smuggling — are more difficult to disrupt.

Hezbollah — so far, anyway — has shown no interest in backing down.

“We will not move an inch from our positions that are honest and honorable,” Qassem said.