"BEIRUT -- After suffering a series of punishing blows by Israel, Hezbollah is fighting back, launching ambushes on Israeli troops in Lebanon and ratcheting up drone and missile strikes deeper into Israel.
The attacks show that Hezbollah, though weakened by Israeli strikes that have killed a generation of its top leaders and destroyed some of its weapons, is still capable of turning Lebanon's deadliest conflict in decades into a long grind for Israel.
Hezbollah has been firing missiles at Israel for more than a year to show its solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. While those missiles have resulted in only limited damage and few casualties, they have displaced tens of thousands of people from northern Israel and drained Israeli resources as Israel spends heavily to intercept them.
Israel's invasion of southern Lebanon in late September, which itself has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, was intended to force Hezbollah to halt its attacks. Instead, it is ramping them up.
A Hezbollah drone attack over the weekend hit the Israeli prime minister's residence in central Israel, more than 40 miles from the Lebanese border, the second time in a week that the group demonstrated an ability to shoot through Israel's air defenses using uncrewed aircraft.
Hezbollah's rocket fire has also ticked up, with the group launching 200 rockets and projectiles each day over the weekend and 140 on Tuesday, according to the Israeli military. During previous weeks it was only averaging a few dozen a day.
Hezbollah's launches are still lower in number than Israeli officials anticipated in the event of a full-scale war, a sign of the group's degraded capabilities. Most of its attacks are being intercepted by Israeli air defenses, the Israeli military says, at a cost of about $100,000 per drone and as much as several million dollars for every missile it shoots down.
Even so, Hezbollah is showing its ability to regroup quickly under pressure. Its armed units have been trained to operate with some degree of autonomy, making it easier for them to keep fighting even when top leaders are killed and internal communications are disabled, military analysts say.
That ability to survive and continue fighting increases the risk that Israel could be sending its military into a bloody and protracted conflict.
"Hezbollah still has its core strategy, which is to hold its ground in the south in the face of any kind of Israeli ground offensive or incursion or advance," said Rym Momtaz, a Paris-based security analyst with Carnegie Europe, a policy institute.
Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shiite-led militant group and political party, was created in response to an Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s. It compelled the Israeli military to withdraw from Lebanon in two previous wars.
The latest expansion of hostilities comes after Israel killed Hamas's leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, a death that some analysts thought could provide an offramp for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the wars in both Gaza and Lebanon. Netanyahu said the next day that the war would continue, while Hezbollah vowed to escalate its response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
Israeli leaders have begun to speak of more ambitious goals for its latest offensive, beyond its initial stated aim of making communities in northern Israel safe. The Israeli military this week launched airstrikes on branches of a Hezbollah-affiliated bank, which Israeli officials said was intended to undermine the Islamist group's base of support.
"It's very complicated to fight there," a senior Israeli military official said. "The goal is to heavily cripple Hezbollah in order to change the balance of power in Lebanon."
Until now, Israel has been able to use its advantages, including air power and sophisticated intelligence and surveillance operations, to put Hezbollah on the defensive. Israel deployed booby-trapped pagers to kill and wound Hezbollah members and launched airstrikes that killed the group's top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and many of its elite fighters. Israel also killed his successor, Hashim Safieddine, Hezbollah said on Wednesday.
Military analysts say Israeli attacks have also degraded Hezbollah's missile force. In late September, the Israeli military said it has destroyed about 50% of Hezbollah's missile stockpile, which before the war was estimated to be about 150,000 missiles and rockets.
Hezbollah has said it remains militarily capable, but hasn't given an estimate of its weapons losses.
Military analysts and diplomats say the group is still able to import more weapons to replace some of what has been destroyed, mainly via its border with Syria, and has processes in place to replace senior leaders who are killed." [1]
1. World News: Hezbollah Strikes Back After Punishing Israeli Blows. Malsin, Jared. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 24 Oct 2024: A.6.
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