Hezbollah has suffered some of the heaviest losses in its history over the past two weeks, chief among them the killing of its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an Israeli airstrike.

Two weeks ago, thousands of communications devices used by Hezbollah members exploded, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000 in an apparent remotely detonated attack that Hezbollah blamed on Israel.

Israel strike LIVE updates – October 4, 2024

The Lebanese militant group has lost nearly 500 fighters since it started attacking Israeli military posts in support of its ally, Hamas, last October. And hundreds more were likely killed in Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon over the past week, which has killed a number of high-ranking commanders and officials.

Where Hezbollah stands after its recent losses

Still, Hezbollah has continued to launch rockets at central Israel. The group’s chief spokesman, Mohammed Afif, warned on Tuesday (October 1, 2024) that those attacks were only the beginning and that the militant group is waiting for invading forces to enter Lebanon to confront them.

Iran, which backs Hezbollah, fired dozens of missiles into Israel on Tuesday (October 1, 2024) and referenced Nasrallah’s death in a statement on state television claiming responsibility for the attack. The bombardment came a day after Israel said it had begun limited ground operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s tens of thousands of fighters have been battle-hardened in regional conflicts, including in Syria, where the militant group helped tip the balance of power in the 13-year conflict in favour of President Bashar Assad.

Hezbollah has five main units, each consisting of several thousand fighters.

The Nasr and Aziz units are deployed in areas bordering Israel, with Nasr controlling the south-eastern region including the edge of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. The Aziz unit is deployed in the southwest, including along the Mediterranean coast. Nasr and Aziz commanders were killed in Israeli airstrikes earlier this year but were believed to have been replaced.

The Badr unit is deployed in an area that includes Apple province, a mountainous region overlooking large parts of southern Lebanon that has been a Hezbollah stronghold since the late 1980s. The Haidar unit is in the eastern Bekaa Valley while the Dahiyeh unit is in Beirut’s heavily populated southern suburb that housed the group’s headquarters where Nasrallah was killed Friday.

The group also has the elite Radwan Force of several thousand fighters, part of which is deployed along the border with Israel. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said in a report Monday that invading Israeli troops will get to know the experienced fighters of Radwan Force if they decide to launch a ground invasion.

In recent weeks, Hezbollah has lost some of its most experienced military commanders, including Ibrahim Akil, who was in charge of the Radwan Force, and Ibrahim Kobbeisi, who was the group’s missiles commander.

The commander of Hezbollah’s drones unit, Mohammed Surour, and the commander of Hezbollah forces in south Lebanon, Ali Karaki, were also killed in air strikes.

In late July, Israel killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fouad Shukur.

Among the group’s commanders who are still active is Talal Hamieh, who is in charge of Hezbollah’s external operations, and Khodor Nader, who heads the group’s security unit. Hezbollah denied Israeli statements that claimed to have killed senior military commander known as Abu Ali Rida, commander of the Badr unit.

The group’s strongman, Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s maternal cousin, is also alive and widely expected to replace Nasrallah as Hezbollah secretary-general. Safieddine is close to Iran and his son, Rida, is married to Zeinab Soleimani, the daughter of an Iranian general who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq in 2020.

Hezbollah has an arsenal of more than 150,000 rockets and missiles as well as surveillance and explosive drones of different types.

Over the past year, Hezbollah has used a small type of guided missile known as Almas, or Diamond, as well as short-range Falaq and Burkan rockets from areas several kilometers (miles) from the border. Over the past week, Hezbollah introduced the middle-range Fadi rockets, attacking the outskirts of Tel Aviv and the northern city of Haifa.

Hezbollah has yet to use all the weapons it is believed to possess, including its precision-guided missiles and surface-to-sea missiles such as the Russian-made Yakhont.

Israeli officials say its bombardment of large swaths of Lebanon over the past week aimed to take out Hezbollah’s supplies of weapons. However, since the escalation began, Hezbollah has continued to launch attacks across the border and even unveiled new types of weapons.

On Tuesday, Hezbollah said it fired middle-range Fadi-4 rockets toward the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. Hours later, the group said it fired similar rockets toward an air base in a Tel Aviv suburb. The group has used surface-to-air missiles and shot down or chased off Israeli drones on several occasions — including in the past week.

Most of the incoming fire has either been intercepted or landed in open areas. But Israeli military officials warn that the country’s air defenses are not hermetic.

Israeli forces have launched limited ground incursions in Lebanon, the United States said Monday, as militant group Hezbollah said it targeted “enemy soldiers” at the countries’ border.

A Lebanese security official said Israel had conducted at least six strikes on south Beirut, after Israel’s army ordered residents in the Hezbollah stronghold to evacuate.

Despite international calls for de-escalation, Israel earlier vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah and sealed part of the border after killing the Iran-backed group’s leader.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned the battle was not over even after the massive strike on Beirut that killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday, dealing the group a seismic blow.

Biden ceasefire call

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told journalists Israeli officials “have informed us that they are currently conducting… limited operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure near the border”.

Hezbollah fighters were “ready if Israel decides to enter by land”, the group’s deputy leader Naim Qassem said in a first televised address since Nasrallah’s death.

Lebanon’s national army, dwarfed by Hezbollah’s military power, was “repositioning” troops farther from the border, a military official told AFP.

World leaders have urged de-escalation, with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric saying: “We do not want any sort of ground invasion.”

U.S. President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s main weapons supplier, earlier on Monday indicated he opposed an Israeli ground operation.

“We should have a ceasefire now,” he said.

Hezbollah ‘targets’ troops

Earlier this month, Israel launched a wave of deadly air strikes aimed at Hezbollah across Lebanon, the latest of which killed 95 people on Monday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

On Monday evening, the Israeli army called on people in three districts of southern Beirut to evacuate.

“You are located near interests and facilities belonging to the terrorist Hezbollah group,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said.

“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate the buildings immediately and stay away from them.”

AFP correspondents in the capital heard explosions and saw a flash around ground level.

Hezbollah said in a statement it “targeted” Israeli troops carrying out “movements” in orchards near the Lebanese border, with a source close to the group saying the soldiers were “right on the border”.

Earlier, in northern Israel near the Lebanese border, Gallant said that “we will use all the means that may be required… from the air, from the sea, and on land”.

He said the killing of Nasrallah was “an important step, but it is not the final one”.

Everyone is afraid

Hezbollah began low-intensity strikes on Israeli troops a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which triggered Israel’s devastating assault on the Gaza Strip.

The border clashes rapidly escalated this month.

On Monday, the Israeli army declared an area of the border strip a “closed military zone”.

Israel’s strikes on Lebanon have killed hundreds of people over the past week and forced up to a million to flee their homes, according to Lebanese officials.

Hezbollah and other groups launched rockets, drones and some missiles at Israel over the same period, causing some injuries but no deaths.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran, which backs Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups, of plunging “our region deeper… into war”.

“There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach,” Netanyahu warned.

Iran has said Nasrallah’s killing would bring about Israel’s “destruction”, though the foreign ministry said Monday that Tehran would not deploy any fighters to confront Israel.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called for a ceasefire based on a recent U.S.-French proposal, urging “an end to the Israeli aggression against Lebanon”.

Earlier on Monday, an Israeli strike hit a building in central Beirut, with an armed Palestinian group saying it had killed three of its members.

The strike, the first in the city centre in years, sparked panic.

Central Beirut resident Kahier Bannout, 42, said it was “supposed to be a safe area — not a war zone”.

“Everyone is afraid.”

Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad said more than 1,000 people have been killed since September 17.

UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi said “well over 200,000 people are displaced inside Lebanon”, while more than 100,000 have fled to neighbouring Syria.

Little time

France on Monday evening said it was deploying a naval ship to Lebanon as a “precaution” in case it decided to evacuate French citizens.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, the first high-level diplomat to visit Beirut since the Israeli strikes intensified, said “there is still hope” for a ceasefire, “but there is little time”.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said diplomacy was the best path forward for the region.

Washington “will continue to work… to advance a diplomatic resolution” for the Israel-Lebanon border, and for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal, he said.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt tried for months to broker such a deal, which Netanyahu’s domestic critics accused him of obstructing.

In Gaza, AFP journalists said the number of Israeli air strikes has dropped significantly in recent days.

A UN Satellite Centre assessment issued Monday said “two-thirds of the total structures in the Gaza Strip have sustained damage” in nearly a year of war.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,615 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

New Delhi:
Israel and Hezbollah have threatened to intensify their cross-border attacks, disregarding calls from the international community to de-escalate and step back from a potential all-out war.

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