The residents of the southern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut woke up, on the night of April 1st, to a sound they wished to never hear again after the last war. Two Israeli missiles struck three floors of a building in the middle of the night, killing four people, a Hezbollah commander with his son, and two female neighbors. The first assassination in Beirut after the “ceasefire” was the most dangerous after a series of aggressions, claiming the lives of more than 30 individuals – most of them civilians – in less than a couple of weeks, including air and drone strikes targeting houses and cars in South Lebanon, south and north of the Litani River. Most of the assassinations happened when Hezbollah members were in their houses and villages, engaging in civilian activities with others present.
Since the liberation of southern Lebanon from Israeli occupation in 2000, the Lebanese resistance has achieved a remarkable feat: it has effectively restricted Israel, its hostile neighbor, from operating freely on Lebanese soil—whether by land, air, or sea. Over the past 24 years, this accomplishment has brought Lebanon, particularly the south and the Bekaa Valley, more than two decades of relative stability, prosperity, and growth. This is no small feat in a region engulfed in turmoil, from Afghanistan to Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, and Yemen, and through the cascading crises following the “Arab Spring.” Even the 2006 war, which lasted 33 days, ended on the Lebanese Resistance’s terms. Israeli forces withdrew behind the Blue Line and largely refrained from targeting the resistance’s movements, equipment, and fortifications in the years that followed. This was widely seen as a decisive victory for the resistance and its strategy of safeguarding Lebanon. This status quo persisted even during a decade of Hezbollah’s intense battles against Al-Qaeda and ISIS-affiliated groups in Syria, which cost the resistance around 2,500 killed and 5,000 wounded.
For over two decades, the limitation of Israel’s operational freedom in Lebanon—or the inability to attack Lebanon at will—has been a persistent frustration for Israeli military leaders. On the few occasions when Israel attempted to breach these constraints, for example by way of scattered strikes in southern and northern Lebanon, or a single attack in the suburbs, Hezbollah’s swift and forceful responses served as a stark warning: the cost of war would be prohibitively high. This deterrence forced Israel to shift from overt military aggression to more covert security operations. Hezbollah, in turn, responded to these operations in various ways—some successful, like the 2013 Labbouneh ambush that targeted an Israeli commando force, or the 2023 Majeddo explosive device, or the exposure and dismantling of their spy networks. Yet, even the failed attempts sent a clear message to Tel Aviv: retaliation for security operations against the resistance was inevitable, effectively curbing Israel’s aggression.
Israel’s “Freedom of Aggression”
The concept of “freedom of action” in Lebanon began to gain traction in Israeli military discourse after the 2006 war, particularly following the findings of the Winograd Commission, which investigated Israel’s failures in that conflict. Israeli Air Force officers and military experts argued that the war’s outcome—a balance of power that prevented Israel from targeting Hezbollah for fear of a devastating missile response—was a strategic failure. This balance allowed Hezbollah to claim victory, a narrative that has shaped the region’s dynamics ever since.
Today, nearly four months after the latest war, Israel’s ability to operate more freely in Lebanon is seen as a significant victory, despite its withdrawal from most occupied territories (except for a few small points). Israeli leaders acknowledge that Hezbollah remains a formidable force, retaining dangerous capabilities at various levels.
However, Hezbollah, once considered the most powerful and experienced non-state military force in the world, suffered a major blow last September. The losses were staggering, affecting leadership, strategic capabilities, and specialized fighters. The war revealed a stark contrast: Israel appeared to have meticulously planned for every scenario, executing its strategies with precision, while Hezbollah struggled to implement its plans and was forced into a defensive, World War I-style battle of attrition. Hundreds of Lebanese youth, armed with little more than light weapons and lacking adequate fire cover or command, rushed to the frontlines to repel the Israeli invasion. They succeeded in their primary mission—preventing Israel from establishing a foothold in Lebanese territory—but at a devastating human cost.
The resistance’s most critical vulnerability in this war was its security exposure. Israel’s access to precise intelligence allowed it to craft and execute a highly effective plan, targeting key figures and infrastructure with devastating accuracy. This security lapse, in one of the largest and deadliest modern wars of the century, will undoubtedly become a case study in military history, underscoring the importance of robust information security and the need to mislead and blind the enemy.
Hezbollah’s trajectory over the past two decades reveals a clear link between its period of “deterrence”—during which it built military capabilities rivaling those of several European nations combined—and its recent security failures. The organization’s laxity at individual, leadership, and organizational levels became glaringly evident in this war. Israel’s ability to target most of Hezbollah’s top leaders within the first week, in a narrow area of Beirut and mostly in above-ground apartments, was a testament to this. The Israelis had spent two decades compiling and analyzing a vast target bank, waiting for the right moment to strike. When that moment came, they executed their plan with devastating efficiency.
Today, Tel Aviv, backed by Washington, seeks to assert that “no place is off-limits to Western air power.” The fact that MQ-9 Reaper drones patrol the skies over Baghdad, Islamabad, Balochistan, Khartoum, Tripoli, and Aden, but are barred from operating over Lebanon and Syria, has been a source of frustration for Western military strategists. Equally vexing is the idea that Hezbollah, an organization fiercely opposed to neo-colonial forces, enjoys economic, security, and political stability, while Washington struggles to deal with it as it does with groups like the Taliban or Al-Qaeda.
The issue is not merely operational. Hezbollah has skillfully managed its image in Lebanon and globally, distinguishing itself from the Western stereotype of “jihadist” organizations. While ISIS, backed by the U.S. according to many American politicians, was slaughtering Christians, Kurds, and Alawites in Syria in 2015, Hezbollah was fighting to repel the group, returning control of areas like the Christian town of Maaloula to their inhabitants. This contrast bolstered Hezbollah’s popular support in Lebanon and the region, despite relentless efforts to frame it as a sectarian “Shia movement” pitted against “Sunni movements.”
This popular support, combined with official and constitutional backing in Lebanon and significant military capabilities, made direct strikes against the resistance unfeasible. Instead, a political and financial siege began. Hezbollah was designated a terrorist organization by NATO and most Western nations aligned with Washington. Financial pressures followed, targeting accounts, businessmen, and the Shia diaspora, while restricting money transfers and attempting to cut off funding sources, particularly through economic sanctions on Iran under Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy. These efforts were accompanied by relentless propaganda campaigns aimed at dehumanizing the resistance and its supporters, crushing their morale, and isolating them internationally.
Pakistan: A Blueprint for the Lebanese case?
The parallels between Lebanon and Pakistan are striking, though not in terms of their realities but in the American-Israeli perspective on the Islamic East. In Pakistan, the Taliban has become an outcast, opposed by official entities and communities outside its narrow base. The U.S.-backed Pakistani army has clashed with armed Islamic groups, seeking to contain their influence. Pakistan, now a key U.S. ally, remains in an intense rivalry with India, another strategic partner of Washington. This model—turning a popular armed group into a besieged outcast while strengthening the army’s alignment with U.S. interests—is one that Washington seeks to replicate in Lebanon. The goal is to transform Hezbollah, a popularly supported resistance movement with significant parliamentary representation in Lebanon since its creation in 1982, into a pariah akin to the Taliban, while elevating the U.S.-aligned Lebanese army as the cornerstone of the state.
This path, still in its early stages, is being portrayed by much of Western media as an inevitable fate. However, recent revolutions in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger against Western-imposed rule demonstrate that the will of the people does not always align with the desires of foreign powers. If a people maintain their determination to fight for liberation, the destruction of their “strategic” arsenal will not end their struggle. Conversely, if they lose that will, even the most formidable arsenals will be meaningless. This overview of Lebanon’s situation and its connection to the broader Middle East underscores the complexity of the region’s conflicts, and opens the road for a more thorough analysis to the correct causes of what happened, and possible upcoming scenarios.
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