Hezbollah’s credibility depends on revenge against Israel. But its weakness has been exposed

For years Hezbollah was seen as the world’s premier non-state actor: the well-equipped, well-trained, well-led, highly disciplined and secretive jewel in the crown of Iran’s allies across the Middle East.

In May 2000, the group managed to drive Israel out of southern Lebanon after a grueling guerilla conflict. Six years later, it fought Israel to a standstill in a 34-day war.

Since then, the Iranian-backed group has built up its arsenal of missiles and drones. In Syria, its troops fought alongside Iran and Russia against the opposition to the Assad regime. For the past 11 months, Hezbollah has exchanged fire with Israel along the border almost daily, forcing more than 62,000 Israelis to flee their homes in the north of the Jewish state (while more than 100,000 Lebanese have fled the border area).

But this summer, the façade of strength began to slip. On the evening of July 30, an Israeli drone fired two missiles into a residential building in southern Beirut, killing senior Hezbollah commander Fu’ad Shukr. And on Tuesday, at approximately 3:30 p.m. Beirut time, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pagers exploded across areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence, wounding almost 3,000 people and killing at least 12.

On Wednesday afternoon, a fresh wave of explosions rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs and towns in the south of the country, killing at least nine people, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Many of the devices that detonated were walkie-talkies, images showed.

While Hezbollah has yet to release precise numbers, it’s clear many of its rank and file were injured in the explosions.

Taken together, the missile attack and the exploding devices represent a dramatic infiltration by Israel of Hezbollah’s critical command and control networks.
Never has the group been so vulnerable, never has it been so compromised.

Hezbollah has vowed to take revenge on Israel. Its credibility depends on it. But realistically, what can it do?

Not much, its recent track record suggests.

To avenge Shukr’s killing, on August 25 Hezbollah launched more than 300 drones and missiles at targets in Israel, including, the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, claimed, the headquarters of the Mossad intelligence agency and Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence unit. Israel denied any important targets were struck and no evidence has been made public to contradict that denial.

Most of the people who carried the devices that exploded were probably field officers, the local linchpins for cells of fighters who make up the backbone of Hezbollah’s forces. And now perhaps two thousand, or more, have been temporarily knocked out of commission, or worse.

The communications network of which the pagers and walkie-talkies were a key part is almost certainly offline.

Hezbollah’s intelligence officers must be desperately trying to figure out how all this happened.

Even if a decision is taken to retaliate against Israel, how will the order be passed down the line, and who will – or even can – carry it out?

Already the border conflict has come at a high cost to Hezbollah, which concedes it has lost more than 400 fighters since October last year, compared with around 250 killed in the far more intense 34-day war with Israel in 2006.

Hezbollah continues to put on a brave face, vowing to carry on striking Israeli targets as long the war in Gaza goes on.

“Morale is high, and the injured will return to the front,” a man who described himself as a “Hezbollah supporter” told CNN as he waited for news of a wounded friend being treated in hospital.

Hezbollah is in a corner. Israel is no longer willing to tolerate the slow-burn war on its northern border and is resorting to ever more extreme and potentially escalatory measures. There is little Hezbollah can do to stop Israel, or to retaliate.

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