


Assassinations of top leaders. Intense attacks on infrastructure and weapons supplies. A ground incursion. These moves by Israel have degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities in Lebanon, but so far have failed to block a steady stream of retaliatory strikes.
Hezbollah, which began attacking Israel more than a year ago in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza, remains resilient, experts say.
“Before all this began, it had a massive arsenal, highly qualified leaders, good leadership selection and a deep bench of skilled fighters,” said Daniel Byman, a senior fellow with the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Hezbollah has been “significantly degraded,” he assessed, but even weakened, it “is still pretty competent.”
The Israeli military killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in a strike near the capital, Beirut, in late September. On Wednesday, Hezbollah confirmed that his presumed successor, Hashem Safieddine, had also been killed in an Israeli strike earlier this month.
Those killings were part of a wave of intensified Israeli attacks on the group that began last month with the mass remote detonation of Hezbollah operatives’ pagers and later walkie-talkies, and was followed by a ground incursion into the country’s south, as well as severe airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Beirut.