Inside battered Hezbollah, words of defiance: ‘All red lines are gone’

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia and its fighters remain defiant, even expressing confidence, despite escalating Israeli attacks on its top commanders and missile arsenal that culminated Friday with the assassination of the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

With little significant retaliation yet from the Iran-backed Hezbollah – and uncharacteristically limited rhetoric from Iran vowing revenge – Israel expanded its airstrikes over the weekend to other anti-Israel militant groups in Lebanon.

It also struck other members of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” as far away as Yemen.

That has raised questions about whether Israel has diminished Iran’s most potent regional ally in just two weeks. It has killed 20 members of its leadership pyramid, wounded 3,000 militia members, and cut key lines of communication by exploding pagers and walkie-talkies. Hundreds of Israeli airstrikes have left more than 1,000 Lebanese dead, both fighters and civilians.

On Monday, a U.S. official was quoted as saying Israeli military chiefs had warned Washington that a limited Israeli ground incursion into southern Lebanon was “imminent” to clear Hezbollah infrastructure along the border.

Also Monday, the Israel Defense Forces said on the social media platform X that it had “dismantled” Hezbollah’s “Missiles and Rockets Force” with a week of airstrikes. On Saturday the IDF said it intensified operations against Hezbollah’s “force build-up” by targeting “key weapon manufacturing sites” and, days earlier, striking smuggling routes from Syria.

Hezbollah officers: We’ll be ready to fight

Yet Hezbollah officers say in interviews that they have restored 70% to 80% of their communications network after temporarily losing contact with field officers in charge of firing missiles.

They also say the most powerful precision-guided, longer-range elements of Hezbollah’s missile arsenal remain intact. And Hezbollah will soon be ready to fight back “full throttle” with bombardments and can now, in any event, repel any Israeli ground invasion, the officers say.

“Our war hasn’t started yet, but it’s [about] to start, and we are going to show the world what we are capable of doing,” says a Hezbollah missile specialist, who gives the pseudonym Hassan.

“All red lines are gone” after the assassination of Mr. Nasrallah, he says. “We are going to fight this war without any rules.”

The Monitor has interviewed both Hezbollah officers quoted in this story several times in the past.

“We have a long way to go; we have a long war to fight,” says Hassan, a Hezbollah veteran of 23 years, when asked why the militia is still using mostly older rockets instead of the most powerful and precise weapons believed to be in its estimated prewar arsenal of 150,000 rockets, missiles, and drones.

“We cannot show them everything the first day. We cannot drop it on them the first day. But you’ll see. ... We know exactly what we are doing,” he says.

Nasrallah’s long leadership

Analysts attribute Hezbollah’s losses of the last two weeks to Israeli intelligence’s deep penetration of the Shiite group, which was founded with the help of Iran during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Mr. Nasrallah assumed leadership more than three decades ago, after his predecessor was killed by Israel. He gained mythical status among his followers in Lebanon and abroad as a truth-telling survivor who delivered military achievements against Israel in 2000 and 2006. During the Syrian civil war, he led Hezbollah’s rescue of a fellow Iranian ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Mr. Nasrallah was killed in a barrage of 80 American-supplied bunker buster bombs and other munitions, which destroyed six residential buildings in Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold of Dahiya. Confirmation of his death prompted scenes of uncontrolled grief and wailing by Hezbollah supporters on the streets, and an exodus of Shiites to safer areas of the capital.

Not all have been welcome. Some Shiite mourners waving Hezbollah flags were reportedly set upon and beaten by members of other Lebanese sects, which blame the Shiite militia and Iran for bringing another devastating war with Israel.

Heiko Wimmen, the International Crisis Group’s Beirut-based project director for Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, says the Israeli attacks likely are having an impact on Hezbollah’s ability to fight back.

Hezbollah officers appear to have little operational security right now, and must assume they are being tracked. That could mean, he says, that if Hezbollah’s arsenals still exist and are functioning, “The expectation would be that the moment you start to activate them, they would be immediately destroyed.”

Hezbollah’s logic has changed

Until the killing of Mr. Nasrallah, there were still public arguments about the wisdom of showing “strategic patience,” and about not being baited by Israel into a wider war, to explain Hezbollah’s lack of a more forceful response to previous Israeli strikes, Mr. Wimmen says.

Indeed, Hezbollah’s reactions were carefully calibrated in solidarity with Hamas, after its attack on Israel last Oct. 7. Both Hezbollah and Iran had signaled a desire only for managed escalation, and not for an all-out war.

But now, “All the logic of holding back – it doesn’t add up anymore,” says Mr. Wimmen.

“From the perspective of Hezbollah, there is no meaningful difference between what is happening and what is to come, potentially, and all-out war,” he says.

On Monday, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Qassem, delivered a recorded message of defiance and sought to reassure reeling Hezbollah forces that revenge was coming and “victory” was certain. The white-bearded cleric did not name a new leader.

Israel had made no dent “at all” in Hezbollah’s military capacity, Mr. Qassem said, and militia weapons had been fired at targets up to 150 kilometers (93 miles) deep in Israel and sent 1 million Israelis into shelters, all while “exerting the minimum effort” as part of a broader war plan.

“What is being said by their [Israeli] media – that they have targeted and hit our military capabilities – this is a dream,” he said. “They will never be able to achieve that. ... The tools and equipment are there.”

Among those who will be ready for a more concerted fight is another Hezbollah officer, a stocky man who works on missile units and gives the pseudonym Jihad.

“Yes, Sayyid Nasrallah is dead. He’s a soldier like we are soldiers; he’s one of us, and he got killed like we get killed. ... He joined the team, that’s all,” says the 22-year Hezbollah veteran.

“Now we are going after [the Israelis]; we’re going to make them pay,” says Jihad. He uses an expletive in reference to Iran, which for a year has helped limit Hezbollah’s retaliation, to avoid a wider war that would directly pull in the United States and Iran.

“We are going to fight this war,” says the Hezbollah officer. “Don’t mention the Iranians to me anymore. We are in Lebanon here; we are going to fight the Israelis and teach them a lesson.”

A Lebanese researcher in Beirut contributed to this report.