The elimination of Hassan Nasrallah is the most serious blow to Hezbollah since the launch of the "Northern Arrows" operation. of the Israel Defense Forces here. The slain leader of the Shiite group in question possessed authority and influence far beyond the borders of Lebanon, and organizational skills without which the organization he led until a few days ago would still be lacking.
In fact, after the liquidation of Qassem Soleimani - the head of the foreign policy unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Al-Quds - at the Baghdad airport in 2020 after an American strike, Hassan Nasrallah remained as the most important and valuable element in the Iranian network of militias woven throughout the Middle East. It was under his leadership during the First and Second Lebanon Wars that Hezbollah inflicted the closest thing to strategic defeats that Israel had ever known in its history since 1948. The Vinograd Commission, specially appointed by the Israeli government to investigate the conduct of military and political leaders in Tel Aviv during the conflict, concluded that in the Second Lebanon War in 2006, a "paramilitary organization of several thousand the man resisted for several weeks the strongest army in the Middle East, which possessed complete air superiority, numerical and technological advantage". The war then ended with the withdrawal of Israel from southern Lebanon and the adoption of Resolution 1701 by the United Nations, the main components of which - the withdrawal of Hezbollah north of the Litani River and the disarmament of the terrorist organization in question - were never implemented. And Hezbollah, having gained additional strength and capabilities in the years since that war, remained a combat-ready tool ready to be activated against Israel. Hence the expressed desire these days of the acting Prime Minister of Lebanon, Najib Mikati - in this position with the support of Hezbollah and the Shiite Amal party - to deploy the Lebanese regular armed forces in southern Lebanon is very late, crisis and controversial in general as far as executable at this point.
It was after the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006, and as a bitter reckoning of its outcome, that the widespread infiltration of Hezbollah's management and control structures by Israeli services began. The result of these efforts has been particularly visible in the past two weeks, in which Tel Aviv has systematically destroyed the Shiite group's logistical, communications and personnel networks. The assassination of Hassan Nasrallah is a kind of culmination of this process of infiltration and sabotage, which shows the extent of the vulnerability of the Shiite organization to the Israeli services. A broken "Enigma" turned out to be in the hands of Mossad Hezbollah.
Despite the extreme importance that the elimination of Hassan Nasrallah has for Hezbollah and the Shiite network in the Middle East, it will not lead to the destruction of the organization in question. Hizbollah is not a snake, stepping on the head of which causes the death of the body. Rather, Hezbollah is itself a body, an organism, a structure, deeply embedded in Shiite society in Lebanon (and cooperating politically with some mainstream Christian parties in the country). It is indicative of this that from the period of the strike against Nasrallah, followed by several hours of uncertainty regarding the fate of the Hezbollah leader, through the announcement of his death and the following days, the rocket barrage from southern Lebanon against Israel did not cease, on the contrary, it expanded its geographical perimeter. The head may be gone, but the skeleton remains; and the root gives birth to a new shoot. The elimination of Nasrallah is a very important step, but it is not everything, Defense Minister Yoav Galant said during a visit to the country's ground forces stationed in northern Israel.
It was the head of Israel's military department who hinted last that the country was preparing to enter Lebanon by land, setting a "new phase" in the war with Hezbollah (he is, of course, not alone in broadcasting such requests). A plan for such an invasion has already been developed, the local media inform, but it is not clear how deep a possible ground action will be. Without it, Tel Aviv cannot achieve its goals - the return of Israeli citizens displaced by the conflict from the northern parts of the country to their homes and the expulsion of Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. Benjamin Netanyahu cannot afford another unfulfilled goal-setting, since almost a year after the start of the war with Hamas, he still has not realized the tasks he set for himself on the southern front - the release of the Israeli hostages and the destruction of the Sunni terrorist organization.< /p>
But it is precisely a possible ground operation by the Israel Defense Forces that would give Hizbollah military operational capabilities that it does not have at the moment. It is about the following. While the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is being fought from a distance - mostly through rocket fire and drones - Tel Aviv, thanks to its better arsenal of ammunition, superior intelligence, satellite surveillance and walls of air defense, will continue to causes Hezbollah losses without collecting serious material ones. At the moment, the conflict between the two looks like a boxing match, in which one of the two competitors simply has longer arms, with which he does not allow the other to approach him. However, in reducing the physical distance of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, i.e. in the event of close combat, the Shiite organization will be able to bring into action its wide range of fighters and military arsenal (from artillery to anti-tank missiles), which at this stage stand more like targets for the Israel Defense Forces.
In the event of such a situation - with the operation of limited-scope actions by Israeli special forces or a larger-scale invasion of southern Lebanon by the country's regular ground forces - it will be important what Iran's reaction would be. A major part of the reasons for Hezbollah's resilience during the First and Second Lebanon Wars was precisely the support that this group received from Tehran. To deter Iran's aid to Hezbollah in the current dimensions of the conflict, Tel Aviv (and Washington) have already struck logistical routes used to transport ammunition from Tehran to Beirut located along the Syrian-Lebanese and Syrian-Iraqi borders, and Israel is also trying to impose a sort of control over the Beirut airport so that it too is not used to transport military cargo from Iran. On the domestic political level, Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to consolidate support for deepening military actions, securing the cooperation of his until recently critic Gideon Saar, who will be a minister without portfolio (for now) in the country's executive branch. Saar is one of the voices for continuing and increasing the volume of the country's military actions against Hezbollah.
In this situation of increasing pressure against Hezbollah, Iran is placed in a very difficult and complicated situation. With each strike by Israel against the Shiite group, it suffers material damage, and Tehran - collateral image damage.
On the one hand, Tehran would suffer in the eyes of its allies in the region if it did not respond to Israel. In the strike against Hassan Nasrallah, the de facto second person in the foreign-political unit of the Iranian Al-Quds, Abbas Nilforoushan, was also killed. Moreover, Iran, citing its "strategic patience", chose not to react immediately to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil. This wariness of the ayatollahs' regime is already creating problems for Tehran in its communication with some of its closest Shiite groups in Iraq, and these will arise all the more with Hezbollah as it continues to collect mounting losses. Still, the Shiite organization in question joined Hamas's war with Israel in an attempt to ease pressure on the Sunni terrorist group. It is logical that Hezbollah, which is currently the focus of Israeli strikes, expects Iran to play a similar role in solidarity.
On the other hand, however, Tehran is clearly aware that if it initiates any form of military support for Hezbollah, it will be used by Israel as a pretext to strike at the Persian state, further exposing the weakness of the Ayatollahs' regime, and to involve the USA in the war. The latter, in turn, would also mean the cessation of attempts by the new Iranian government, led by President Massoud Pezeshkian, to thaw relations with the West in general and to resume negotiations on a nuclear deal with Washington in particular (sabotaging them, of course, would be additional success for Tel Aviv). These complex reasons explain the careful behavior of the ayatollahs' regime, which, beyond its usual revanchist rhetoric and threats, has refrained from drastic action at this stage. Such behavior makes sense in the strategic situation of the country in question, in which the pro-Shia formations in the Middle East should be used as an asset, not as a liability. And this means that they should be activated in defense of Iran, not Tehran - in theirs. The publicly stated confidence in Hezbollah's resilience by the authorities in Tehran certainly has a propaganda dimension, but it also rests on strategic planning - Israel's military doctrine implies quick action in short-term conflicts, and a conventional war with Hezbollah promises nothing of the sort.
Iran has no useful move. If the regime of the Ayatollahs reacts with a military response that is not pre-arranged like that of April this year, it will become a target for Israel; if it chooses not to do so, its regional positioning will suffer not only moral damage. However, Iran is currently placed in the position of watching its favorite child, Hezbollah, being abused by its long-time enemy, Israel.