Hezbollah is diminished, decapitated, and in disarray—but still dangerous

William F. Wechsler

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Israel’s assassination of the Hezbollah leader “is likely to inflame tensions,” according to the Washington Post, and it will keep the region “locked in a new cycle of violence,” according to the New York Times. Noting the civilians that died in the attack, including children, the US State Department spokesperson urged “all concerned to exercise maximum restraint.” If this all seems familiar that’s because it is—all three of those quotes are from more than thirty years ago, after the Israeli strike in 1992 that killed Hassan Nasrallah’s immediate predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi.

Today Hezbollah is diminished, decapitated, and in disarray. The details are yet to emerge, but my bet is that the strike that killed Nasrallah was a target of opportunity for Israel that presented itself only over the last week. It likely emerged due to Hezbollah’s increasingly sloppy communications protocols in the wake of Israel’s impressively effective pager and walkie-talkie bombing operations that killed dozens and blinded hundreds if not thousands of Hezbollah operatives, and the subsequent elimination of the senior chain of command of the Radwan Force, Hezbollah’s special operations unit. With these operations, along with the operations in Syria and Iran, the Israeli Defense Forces and Mossad have regained much of the credibility they lost on October 7.