Recent airstrikes in Lebanon destroyed about half of Hezbollah’s stock of missiles and rockets over more than three decades, dealing a blow to the militia’s capabilities, Israeli and U.S. officials said.
But the group’s arsenal remains formidable, with tens of thousands of projectiles fired across the country, and a massive barrage could overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome anti-projectile defense system. Officials said there is.
Hezbollah has distributed weapons across Lebanon (the whole country is “furious” with weapons, according to one Israeli official), and since last October it has been using weapons to fire mainly into northern Israel. I am using it.
Israel had been carrying out attacks in southern Lebanon, forcing tens of thousands of Lebanese to flee. However, around September 17, Israeli leaders decided to destroy as much of the arsenal as possible so that the approximately 60,000 Israelis who had been evacuated from northern Israel due to the continuing fires could return home, Israeli officials said. Two people spoke. The Israeli Air Force launched a devastating attack the following week.
With help from Iran, Hezbollah amassed the bulk of its stockpile of projectiles, estimated at 120,000 to 200,000 missiles, over 30 years. After the first attack, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah asked Iran and Syria to replenish their weapons, Israeli and U.S. officials said. That contributed to Israel’s decision to kill Nasrallah.
Since Nasrallah’s killing last Friday, Lebanese authorities have heeded Israeli demands to turn back Iranian planes attempting to fly into Beirut, complicating Hezbollah’s efforts to quickly procure additional weapons. said US officials.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday that an airstrike in Beirut killed Mohamed Ja’afar Kassir, a Hezbollah commander in charge of transferring arms from Iran to Lebanon.
U.S. officials claim Hezbollah’s offensive into northern Israel, which began the day after Hamas carried out a devastating attack in southern Israel on October 7, was a response to Israel’s war in Gaza. . They said Hezbollah might have stopped if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had agreed to a ceasefire.
However, the United States, Qatar, and Egypt have failed to reach a ceasefire agreement in Gaza despite multiple rounds of diplomacy this year.
On Monday, Israel launched a ground operation in Lebanon. Officials said the Israeli military plans to destroy Hezbollah’s missile storage site and launch vehicles.
Two Israeli officials said they intend to continue targeting Hezbollah weapons depots and killing the group’s commanders while they have momentum. White House officials have said they hope the ground invasion will be limited, and President Biden has called for a ceasefire on both sides. The Israeli attack has left hundreds of Lebanese civilians dead and one million displaced.
“We are determined to return the northern population safely to their homes,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.
Although Hezbollah still has large numbers of missiles and rockets, its warplanes have not launched large numbers of missiles or rockets into central Israel.
U.S. officials say this is in part because a series of Israeli attacks, culminating in last Friday’s airstrike that killed Nasrallah outside Beirut, severely damaged the organization’s command and control structure. He points to the fact that there are almost no executives left who can issue orders to the department. Fighter plane.
The group may also be waiting for a signal from Iranian officials, who have helped build up their arsenal as a deterrent to a possible Israeli attack on Iran, officials said. If Hezbollah uses up most of its remaining weapons and cannot replenish them, its deterrence will disappear.
And Hezbollah may prefer that Iran itself, with its more powerful weapons, retaliate. In April, Iran fired more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel in retaliation for a deadly attack on Iranian diplomatic facilities in Syria. Israel, the United States, and partner countries in the region shot down nearly all of them.
Iranian forces fired a ballistic missile toward Israel on Tuesday night in the Middle East. Air raid sirens sounded throughout the country, and residents witnessed defensive missile interceptors flying through the sky. Iran’s mission to the United Nations said on social media that the attack was a response to an “act of terrorism” by Israel that violated Iran’s “sovereignty.”
Some Israeli and American officials have said they believe Israel has succeeded in establishing deterrence with Iran through attacks it carried out after a barrage of Iranian fire in April. In additional strikes, Israel damaged one or more S-300 antiaircraft batteries installed by Iranian forces around the ancient city of Isfahan, U.S. officials said.
Such attacks, coupled with Israel’s assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh while in Tehran in July, raise the possibility that Israel could attack central Iran and possibly kill Iranian leaders. It was shown that there is.
Some American officials have stressed that Hezbollah’s leadership was crippled by the sudden Israeli operation. Its leadership has been decimated not only by Nasrallah’s killing but also by pager explosions and other attacks that have killed and injured top and mid-ranking leaders over the past three weeks.
Hezbollah’s Special Operations Command, known as Radwan Force, was wiped out in a Sept. 20 airstrike that effectively killed Hezbollah’s military operations chief, Ibrahim Aqeel, on the southern outskirts of Beirut, American officials said.
Naim Qasem, who served as Hezbollah’s acting leader after Nasrallah’s death, said on Monday that contingency plans were in place to ensure a replacement commander was available if something happened to the group’s leadership. He said there was.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the most recent wave of Israeli airstrikes on September 23 hit 1,300 targets, including sites with long-range cruise missiles, large rockets and drones. said.
Still, American officials say it is an open question whether the Israeli operation can be turned into a strategic gain. How long Israel will remain in southern Lebanon, how deeply Iran will participate in the counterattack, what Hezbollah will do to counter this, and what political forces will seize influence in Beirut. , all of which will factor into the long-term results.
Israel’s violent and unsuccessful occupation of Lebanon from 1982 to 2000 resulted in the creation of Hezbollah.
Some U.S. officials are skeptical about the situation, especially in the long term. They do not believe that military operations in Lebanon will set Hezbollah back for long.
The group has tunnel infrastructure that can only be destroyed by a long-term presence in the country, and Israeli officials say they are reluctant to reoccupy it. The tunnels are dug deep into the bedrock of southern Lebanon, making them difficult to attack by airstrikes. Parts of the network are large enough for large military equipment to pass through.
These more pessimistic U.S. officials say that even if Mr. Nasrallah were an idiosyncratic and charismatic leader, he would be easily replaced as a mid-level or even senior military commander.
Mr. Nasrallah appears to have become wary of ordering large-scale attacks on Israel after the massive destruction that occurred in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, but the new leader is likely to have the same sense of caution. There is a possibility that there is no.
Euan Ward contributed reporting from Beirut.
