BEIRUT: Hezbollah, a vital defense shield and one of Iran’s most significant allies, is suffering crippling losses as a result of Israeli attacks. However, Tehran has chosen to pursue cooperation with the West rather than step in to support the militant group.
As a show of solidarity for Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah increased its attacks on Israel 11 months ago. Since then, the group has suffered the greatest losses in its forty years. Attacks last week that converted radios and pagers into bombs have destroyed its armaments, crippled its leadership, and damaged its communications.
Iran has not entered the battle, despite providing verbal support.
This week at the UN, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared that Hezbollah “is perfectly able to defend itself and to defend Lebanon and Lebanese people.”Masoud Pezeshkian, the president of Iran, charged Israel with “atrocities,” “colonialism,” “desperate barbarism,” and “crimes against humanity” in Gaza prior to the U.N. General Assembly. While announcing a “new era” in which Iran will play a “constructive role” in international affairs, he also struck a more moderate note.
Iran’s focus on engagement and its hesitance to intervene on the ground demonstrate the limited military options available to reestablish deterrence with Israel after a year of heightened hostilities in the region, analysts and diplomats say.
Hundreds of Hezbollah fighters are estimated to have been killed and “significant” munitions and equipment destroyed since Monday, according to an assessment by one government. The speed with which so much was destroyed shows the extent of Israel’s intelligence gathering, said an official briefed on the assessment. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the assessment to journalists.
The Israel Defense Forces launched more than 1,000 airstrikes at what it said were Hezbollah targets in southern and northeastern Lebanon, including in Beirut’s southern suburbs, in the first 24 hours of the offensive. Many hit civilian homes, according to people who fled the areas hit hardest.
More than 600 people, including more than 50 children, have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since Monday, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Thousands have been wounded. The ministry does not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
Strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs have killed at least four senior Hezbollah commanders in the past week. On Thursday, a bridge between Lebanon and Syria was destroyed.The attacks have forced tens of thousands of people from their homes, triggering a humanitarian crisis that analysts and individuals close to Hezbollah say has already increased pressure on the group.
Hezbollah, founded in the 1980s, has grown from an insurgency in Lebanon’s southern mountainous region to the most powerful armed force in the country. It owes much of that growth to decades of Iranian patronage.
That long relationship is one
